KARACHI, July 29: The opposition did not have the required strength in the National Assembly for its no-confidence motion to succeed against the prime minister, federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Durrani said on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Mr Durrani claimed that maybe it was the reason why the main opposition alliances – the ARD and the MMA — had not submitted their no-confidence motion.

Responding to a querry about the joint ARD-MMA declaration to launch a joint anti-government movement, Mr Durrani said that the meeting held at Makhdoom Amin Fahim’s residence on Friday was a ‘conspiracy’ to divert peoples’ attention from the Lebanon crisis. He blamed the exiled ARD leaders of trying to destabilise the democratic process in the country and vowed that the government would never allow them to do so. He declared that PPP’s chairperson Benazir Bhutto now had no role in national politics.

“During the past four years, the opposition parties have been unable to launch any campaign because of a lack of public response,” he said.

The minister claimed that General Musharraf was more democratic minded than the opposition parties. Despite allegations of denial and violations of rights by the opposition, the minister said that the government had introduced a democratic culture in the country and had denied opportunities for negative politics and corruption.

Mr Durrani termed the MQM ministers and advisers’ move to tender resignations unconstitutional and undemocratic and said that President Musharraf had convened a meeting in Islamabad on August 1 to resolve the Sindh crisis. “We can resolve all issues through talks and mutual understanding,” he added.

He termed the current situation in Sindh an internal issue and said that the province’s democratic coalition was capable of resolving all outstanding issues.

He claimed that by attending and addressing meetings of the ruling PML, the president was not violating the ruling of the Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan. The CEC had recently said that by virtue of his post, the president could not launch a campaign for the ruling PML. “We are following spirit of the CEC’s instructions,” Mr Durrani said.

The minister reiterated that assemblies would complete their tenure and the ruling PML would win the next general elections.

He said that they were following a strategy that would prevent future Army interventions in politics. When he was asked how they could prevent army interventions in national politics by supporting a president-in-uniform, the minister said it would be resolved according to the Constitution.

He announced that intra-party polls in the Sindh chapter of the ruling PML would be held on July 31, instead of July 25. He said that the president or the prime minister would attend the OIC’s meeting expected to be held on Aug 2-3, which would discuss the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.