ISLAMABAD, June 3: The federal and the NWFP governments appear headed for a political confrontation linked to the controversy over presidential powers.

The conflict, most serious between Islamabad and a province since a transition to democracy after more than three years of military rule, coincided with the NWFP Assembly’s passage of the Shariat Bill introduced by the ruling Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

However, political analysts said the unresolved controversy over the Legal Framework Order that gives sweeping powers to President Pervez Musharraf is at the heart of the new trouble, which has also sparked fears about the future of the MMA’s six-month-old provincial government.

The federal government on Monday threatened to take “administrative action” to curb the religious fervour demonstrated by MMA vigilantes in acts such as tearing down what they see as obscene billboards.

The MMA has complained of arm-twisting and vowed to resist it, with alliance leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman threatening nationwide protests.

A question mark remains over who will win the emerging battle, although such centre-province conflicts in the past have often ended with the disappearance of a provincial cabinet but also left the federal victors bleeding for a long time.

The conflict shows that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali’s ruling PML-Q and the combined opposition, which also includes the PPP and PML-N, still remain far apart over the LFO despite last month’s negotiations in a joint parliamentary committee and that the establishment’s efforts to revive old alliances with MMA parties have still not borne the desired fruit.

Opposition sources said a virtual revolt by all 24 district Nazims in the NWFP — staged in the shape of en masse resignations sent directly to the president over their complaints against the provincial government — and the threat of administrative action were the federal government’s pressure tactics to force an MMA compromise over the LFO.

The federal government’s move on Monday to take administrative measures in the NWFP seemed to have come as a shock to the MMA at a time when its members were distributing sweets in Peshawar to celebrate their Shariat Bill, which none of the 125 members of the provincial assembly dared to oppose despite its potential to send shockwaves across the country and beyond the national borders.

“These are pressure tactics,” PPP spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar said of the moves that he said were aimed at breaking the MMA from the joint opposition stand against the LFO.

He said there seemed “some hand” behind the resignations of the NWFP district Nazims for what they called malafide restrictions placed by the MMA government over the district governments.

He said he doubted if Gen Musharraf would go as far as dismissing the provincial government before his scheduled visit to the United States later this month.

“But Gen Musharraf seems to be losing his patience,” said another opposition source.