ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The National Assembly will meet on Monday after a three-week recess to begin a new parliamentary year with no sign of any change in the bitter government-opposition relationship that has marked the past three years of the present lower house.

The Oct 8 earthquake appears certain to dominate the proceedings of the first session of the assembly’s fourth parliamentary year while opposition and the ruling alliance are likely to engage in heated debates also on other issues ranging from legislation to the position of parliament under a military president.

As they have done repeatedly during the past 12 months, the opposition parties will question the government about why President Pervez Musharraf did not call a mandatory joint sitting of the two houses of parliament to address it at the start of the parliamentary year, opposition sources said.

The government is expected to come up with the same old condition that this will not be done in the absence of an opposition commitment to abstain from holding noisy protests in the house that marked the only first such address by President Gen Pervez Musharraf at the start of the second parliamentary year in January 2004.

The issue of dual-office is likely to come up again after last month’s Commonwealth summit in Malta decided to keep Pakistan’s position in the grouping under watch until the president gives up his uniform latest by 2007.

Opposition members are also likely to protest against the laws enacted by presidential ordinances that were issued just before the assembly session rather than being brought as bills.

The president issued one ordinance on Saturday to provide for the recognition and enforcement of arbitration agreements and another on Sunday to amend the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999 to provide for two deputy chairmen of the NAB.