PESHAWAR, Nov 19: Former Pakistan president Sardar Farooq Ahmed Leghari has said that an understanding on the controversial clauses of the legal framework order has been reached between the federal government and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal sometime ago.

Speaking at an iftar-dinner, which provincial chapter of the Millat Party hosted for the local journalists here at a hotel on Tuesday, Mr Leghari said the MMA leaders, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, wanted to get one year time allowed to the president to remain in uniform inserted in the Constitution. This was not right to mention this point in the Constitution, he said.

Similarly, he said, the MMA had agreed on the formation of the National Security Council, which would function as a consultative body on the defence and security related issues. The MMA had been briefed on the role of the prime minister, who would be able to dissolve the assembly if the situation demanded so, he added.

Mr Leghari said he himself had constituted the council for defence and national security (CDNS), being president of the country to asses the security situation around the frontiers. He said that the NSC was a national requirement and the MMA leadership knew it, which wanted to get it formed through a Parliamentary Act.

Millat Party president said that the LFO was a reality and one could not reject it with one stroke. The LFO should be taken as a transitional phase between the military and the civilian ruler, he observed.

He said after the next elections, the local government affairs would be taken out of the 6th Schedule of the Constitution and it (local government system) would vested with the federating units.

The consensus between the government and the MMA would help in ending the present polarization and provide a legitimate base to Gen Musharraf’s military action, he added.

He denied that the Jamali government needed two/third majority for the routine legislation, but, the presence of the opposition in the House was necessary to put a check on the government. About the arrest of PML acting president Javed Hashmi, he said Mr Hashmi had violated the law and the law had taken its course.

He said that violation of law was the main cause of various ills and misgovernance in the country. “All those laws which cannot be implemented, should not be taken as laws”, he added.

He said some people were in habit of maligning the military and the judiciary, which was not fair for the rule of the law. In the past, he said PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had tried to belittle the judiciary, which gave birth to an unending crisis, he added.

He said his party had nothing to do with the merger of the PPP factions headed by Patriots and Sherpao. “I had launched the party to oppose the misrule of Ms Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif”, he added.