ISLAMABAD, Feb 29: Pakis-tan Muslim League-Q leaders held meetings with their allies on Friday to chalk out a joint strategy to support President Pervez Musharraf and undermine the parties which have won the elections and are trying to form a coalition government.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who is spearheading the campaign, held meetings with PPP-Sherpao chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao and former MMA legislator from Balochistan Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani.

Also on Friday, Punjab’s former chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi held his second meeting with the president in as many days.

Sharifuddin Pirzada and Senator S.M. Zafar met the president. Separately, Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum also held a meeting with the president.

While Chaudhry Pervaiz is reported to have discussed the “successful campaign” that his party has launched to steer president Musharraf out of the crisis that he is facing, the legal team expressed its opinion on the controversy over restoration of the superior judiciary to its pre-Nov 3 position.

Chaudhry Shujaat, meanwhile, has expressed the opinion that the newly elected assemblies will not last long and said he would give a date for fresh polls after two months. Earlier, he had said he hoped an occasion necessitating the use of clause 58(2)b by the president would not arise.

Whether fresh elections were held soon or later, he said, the former ruling coalition parties would sit in the opposition and prove themselves to be a ‘positive opposition’. Mr Sherpao has endorsed PML-Q’s decision and said that his party also would sit in the opposition in the National Assembly, but support the provincial government in Peshawar.

Answering a question about renaming the NWFP, the PPP-S leader said the provincial assembly had already adopted a unanimous resolution on the issue. He said the combined opposition would play a positive role in the National Assembly.

Mr Sherpao, who was interior minister in the PML-Q led coalition, also said that it was up to the new coalition government whether to pursue the policy of crushing the insurgency in Swat by military operation or to start dialogue to achieve this objective.

Chaudhry Shujaat described the demand for president’s impeachment as illogical and said that Mr Musharraf had been constitutionally elected by the previous assemblies for a period of five years.

In a related development, presidential spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi denied reports suggesting that the president had offered to reinstate the deposed judges of the superior courts if some of his conditions were accepted.