July 06, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 2, 1429

ISLAMABAD, July 5: Differences among the ruling coalition partners on key national issues forced the government to delay the National Assembly session, scheduled for July 14, for at least 10 days.

Sources told Dawn here on Saturday that the ministry for parliamentary affairs, which was preparing a summary to be sent to the presidency for summoning the session, was abruptly ‘forbidden’ to continue its work.

The sources said the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party was ‘perturbed’ by recent statements made by the leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-N that they had not been consulted by the PPP on major issues, including increases in prices of oil, gas and electricity and operation in tribal areas.

Moreover, the sources said, other coalition partners — Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F and Awami National Party– also had some reservations over the recent actions of the government, particularly in the NWFP.

Another factor for the session’s delay is stated to be the failure of the coalition partners in reaching consensus on the constitutional amendment bill. The sources said that so far the PPP had not received comment from any of its coalition partners on the constitutional package. A source said the PPP had now started looking for “options to resolve the judges’ issue without … the constitutional package”.

The PML-N has already rejected the reinstatement of the deposed judges through the package and asked the PPP to restore the pre-Nov 3 judiciary through an executive order.

The sources said the PPP feared that it could face an embarrassing situation in the National Assembly session if its coalition partners started criticising the government’s decisions like the tribal area operation and hike in prices of oil, gas and electricity.

The adviser to the government on parliamentary affairs, Izhar Amrohvi, said the decision to postpone the session had been made to enable the government to hold more talks with its coalition partners over the proposed legislative agenda for the next sitting.

He said the session would now be held in the last week of July, and the summary for requisitioning the assembly would be sent to the presidency “two or three days before the session”.