LAHORE, Sept 29: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy have yet to find a common ground for mutual cooperation, their desire to join forces against President Pervez Musharraf notwithstanding.

Their rival stands on the status of the 17th constitutional amendment and their lack of willingness to review them are keeping the two major opposition alliances apart. The gap, apparently, is unbridgeable.

ARD Secretary General Iqbal Zafar Jhagra said while talking to Dawn on Wednesday that the two coalitions should work together to strike down the entire 17th amendment. He also insisted that the religious alliance should admit that it had committed a mistake by providing constitutional cover to everything done by Gen Musharraf during his three-year period mandated by the Supreme Court and enabling him to call himself the elected president.

MMA President Qazi Husain Ahmed has already declared in categorical terms that his alliance would not call its support to the 17th amendment a mistake nor will it apologize for its support.

He thinks that the uniform of Gen Musharraf should be made the basis of cooperation between the two coalitions. The ARD and the MMA should mount pressure on the president to give up his military dress by the end of the year, he said.

The ARD secretary-general, on the other hand, said that his alliance would not recognize Gen Musharraf as elected president even if he donned his uniform. Jhagra said the 17th amendment had disfigured the 1973 Constitution, converting the parliamentary system into presidential and giving unlimited powers to the president.

In his opinion the president would be calling the shots through the National Security Council even after taking off his uniform and thus the ARD visualized no change in the situation even if the MMA's demand was met.

The matter will come up at an all-party conference the ARD plans to hold during the next few days. However, Mr Jhagra said if the MMA stuck to its stand, it would not be possible for the ARD to join hands with it. The MMA is already preparing itself for a campaign against Gen Musharraf, regardless of ARD's line of action.