LAHORE, Dec 5: A serious crisis has cropped up in the ruling PML-Q over the question of simultaneously holding party and government offices and the power to make appointments against vacant posts.

It started with Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali first stepping down as secretary-general of the party and then appointing NWFP’s Salim Saifullah Khan as his successor.

Party president Mian Muhammad Azhar said on Thursday that under the PML constitution as well as the Political Parties Order, holders of public offices could not simultaneously retain their party offices.

Thus, he said, the prime minister, chief ministers, ministers and advisers will have to quit their party offices, a point of view immediately questioned by sources close to the Punjab chief minister.

Mian Azhar, defeated on two NA seats in Lahore in the Oct 10 elections, insisted that it was his prerogative as party president to make appointments against the offices vacated through resignations or on account of somebody assuming any official responsibility.

He said Salim Saifullah Khan’s appointment was unconstitutional and thus of no legal effect. The office of the secretary-general, he said, was lying vacant after the resignation of Mr.Jamali and he would appoint somebody against the office in consultation with senior leaders.

Mr.Jamali, Mian Azhar said, had set a very wrong precedent by appointing his own successor without any authority.

He said while the prime minister was empowered to order postings and transfers of officials, he had no authority whatsoever to take any decision about the party.

The PML-Q president met Syed Fakhar Imam and Begum Abida Husain on Thursday and made telephonic contacts with many other leaders to exchange views on the constitutionality of Mr.Jamali’s action.

He claimed that most of the leaders had endorsed his point of view.

If Mian Azhar’s point of view is accepted then Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousaf, Railways Minister Ghaus Bux Mehr, Foreign Minister Mian Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan will have to resign from party offices.

However, sources close to the Punjab chief minister say that the resolution under which the party and government offices had been separated at the central level, had not been adopted by the provincial organization.

As a result, they say the chief minister would not quit his party office. The same would be the position of office-bearers to be inducted into the cabinet, the sources say.