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ISLAMABAD, Oct 14: The country’s main opposition parties made their first formal contacts on Monday to discuss possible cooperation to form the next government after last week’s election produced the most split National Assembly in Pakistan’s history.
But political sources said the talks between the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal of six religio-political parties and their separate meetings with the leaders of other parties exploratory to be followed by more contacts in the coming days of expected hectic political activity in Islamabad.
The day’s most important thing was a breakfast meeting between Makhdoom Amin Fahim, head of PPP’s electoral formation People’s Party Parliamentarians and Jamaat-i-Islami chief and deputy MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed.
Mr Fahim, a possible PPP prime ministerial candidate who plans to meet all parties in seeking “a government of national consensus”, also held talks with his party’s former close ally Hamid Nasir Chattha, who head his own small faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-J).
On the other hand, the Jamaat chief also held meetings with Raja Zafarul Haq, chairman of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s PML(N) and Sardar Farooq Leghari, former president and Millat Party chief.
EXCHANGE OF EXPECTATIONS: “The talks were exploratory, preliminary... on what are their expectations and what are our expectations,” a PPP source said of the Fahim-Qazi meeting.
Neither side would give details of the meeting, but the PPP source said the present discussions were taking place on the question of a coalition that could form the next government under an elected prime minister and the fate of the controversial constitutional amendments decreed by President Pervez Musharraf.
The PML(Q) has emerged as the largest single party in the National Assembly by grabbing 76 of the 272 seats of the 342-seat National Assembly contested in Thursday’s election followed by PPP’s 76 and MMA’s 45.
But even with its smaller allies such as the 12-seat National Alliance and expected support from independents and women members to be elected on reserved seats, it will remain far short of a simple majority needed to elect the new prime minister.
The backing of 45-seat MMA could improve the chances of either PML(Q) or PPP to head the new government, whose existence would depend on maintaining a delicate balance in a fractured parliament.
FUTURE PLANS:The MMA leaders are due to meet in Islamabad on Wednesday to decide their future course of action, which is likely to include the alliance’s conditions for support to a governing coalition.
Also on Wednesday, the PML(Q) central committee is meeting in Islamabad and the PPP-led 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy is meeting in Lahore to discuss future plans.
While both the PML(Q) and PPP — despite its protests against alleged vote-rigging — are staking their claims to form the government, the MMA appears interested only in leading the governments in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, where it is the largest party in the provincial assemblies.
The PML(Q), which has named former interior minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as its parliamentary leader after its president lost election for both seats he contested in the Punjab province, is trying to win over the MMA on the basis of past alliances between a united PML and religious parties.
On the other hand, the PPP is seeking MMA’s cooperation on the basis of their opposition to military rule and common goals of the restoration of the 1973 constitution minus amendments decreed by President Musharraf, including those that give him powers to sack the future prime ministers, dissolve parliament and head the overseeing military-civil National Security Council.
