ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: The MMA has briefed the ARD on its ongoing negotiations with the government on the proposed constitutional package, a source told Dawn on Monday.

The source said MMA Senator Prof Khursheed Ahmed briefed the senators belonging to the ARD and the nationalist parties about the LFO talks at a meeting held before the start of the Senate session on Monday.

He said Prof Khursheed told the opposition members that an agreement had been reached between the government and the MMA on almost all contentious points. He said it had been agreed that the president would seek a vote of confidence through show of hands and that the MMA would not give him the trust vote.

The ARD asked the MMA senator to explain what was their achievement in the package as the religious alliance had surrendered all its demands and agreed to almost all conditions set by the government. The professor replied that bringing the LFO to parliament was itself a big success.

The Leader of the People’s Party Parliamentarians in the Senate, Mian Raza Rabbani, told the senator that the ARD would not support the package and would vote against it.

Later, the ARD leaders told Dawn that there was nothing new in the briefing.

“Perhaps, Prof Khursheed himself does not know much about the package as he is not a member of the MMA’s Supreme Council,” said one of the ARD senators. He regretted that no senior member of the MMA, like Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, had contacted the ARD after resumption of their talks with the government soon after Eid.

The ARD senator said the MMA was playing a dangerous game by “indirectly supporting a military dictator”. He was of the view that in future every general (president) would ask for a vote of confidence from parliament pointing to Gen Pervez Musharraf’s case as a precedent. He said supporting the government in the introduction of a clause in the constitution under which the president would seek a vote of confidence was like “sanctifying the presidential referendum.”

He said the referendum was challenged by none other than Qazi Hussain Ahmed in the Supreme Court. “Even the court had left the issue of presidential election open at that time to be taken up at a proper time and at a proper platform,” he added.