ISLAMABAD, July 1: Tuesday's election of the leader of the house in the National Assembly has sparked a new controversy over the issue of the leader of the opposition.

In this second ascertainment for the leader of the house elected in 2002, the runner-up, ARD chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, polled 76 votes, an improvement upon his group's tally of 70 in the first ascertainment.

According to legal experts, the speaker has the discretion to appoint the leader of the opposition after making an assessment as to which member commanded the majority of the opposition and once he appoints someone he cannot undo the decision unless he finds the leader of the opposition's performance below mark or finds him violating a constitutional provision.

According to Dr Sher Afgan of the new PPP, the speaker can remove the present leader of opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman for boycotting the National Security Council meeting which, he said, had been set up as an act of parliament.

He, however, justified the appointment of Maulana Fazl on the basis of his being runner-up in the first ascertainment of the leader of the house and also because the MMA was the single largest parliamentary group which had contested the 2002 elections on one symbol.

Dr Sher Afgan said there was a need of review the relevant laws and conventions borrowed from the India Act of 1935 about the appointment of the leader of opposition.

He said that under the parliamentary tradition, any party with strength to complete the quorum of a house would be called a parliamentary party and those short of such strength would be called parliamentary groups.

Besides, he said, the PPP Parliamentarians and the PML-N could not be clubbed together as a single party since the two had contested the 2002 elections against each other and on parallel policies.

The speaker appointed Maulana Fazl on two counts - first that he had been the runner-up in the first ascertainment for the leader of the house in November 2002 and, second, that the MMA was the single largest party in the house whose MNAs had contested election under a single symbol.

Those in the ARD who have been opposing the appointment of Maulana Fazl argue that the speaker should now take into consideration the second as certainment to assess who commands the majority of the opposition support in the National Assembly.

On the other hand, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal says the speaker should have appointed the Maulana immediately after he had bagged 86 votes against PPP Parliamentarian's Shah Mehmood Qureshi who polled 70 in the first ascertainment.

Senator Farhatullah Babar, who is also spokesperson for PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, argues that the speaker had taken the plea that Maulana Fazl was appointed since he had attained the first runner-up position, he should now ask the opposition parties to again give lists of their supporters in writing with their signatures and review his decision accordingly.

Deputy parliamentary leader of the MMA, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, is of the opinion that the leader of the opposition should have been appointed immediately after the election of the leader of the house, but it was delayed under political exigencies. He said the appointment of Maulana Fazl had been made strictly according to rules and parliamentary traditions.

Moreover, he argued, if the government replaced Maulana Fazl with Makhdoom Amin in the hope that the latter would recognize the NSC and attend its meetings then the government was sadly mistaken because the PPP Parliamentarian had already stated that even if he became the leader of the opposition he would never attend the council's meetings.

Hafiz Hussain said that even if Mr Amin was appointed the leader of the opposition and he attended the NSC meetings, the chief minister of the NWFP would still stay away from it.