LAHORE, April 27: Both Gen Pervez Musharraf and the MMA will show flexibility in their stance during talks on the LFO as they know that otherwise they will have to go, says the Awami National Party.

“The MMA will compromise on the uniform issue as Gen Musharraf will agree to give a date for putting it off,” ANP president Ehsan Wyne claimed while talking to Dawn here on Sunday.

He said both the parties had their vested interest in solving the issue, and they knew that a dialogue was the only way to save their position.

The ANP also believed that the general must keep one office either the presidency or the chief of the army staff, he said. And even in case of keeping the presidency, he should get himself elected according to the rules laid down in the 1973 Constitution.

“The step is needed to check wrong norms of might is right from taking roots in the future political setup.”

Criticizing Gen Musharraf’s stance that parliament’s ratification was not needed to make the LFO a part of the constitution, he said all army dictators in the past had not taken this stand and got their actions ratified, though through bargaining, from the then parliaments.

He lauded the role the MMA leadership was playing for solving the present constitutional crisis.

“The MMA is trying to solve the issue in parliament and through talks, and instead of taking to streets is adopting non-violent ways to protest and pressure the government to come to the negotiation table.”

Mr Wyne said legal technicalities should be ignored while resolving the matter otherwise a Pandora box would open and the structure built so far collapse.

The issue was of political nature and the resistance being offered was also political and not legal so it should be solved in a political manner, he said.

Commenting on MMA government’s plan to introduce shalwar-kameez to replace trouser-shirt as uniform in schools in the NWFP, he said the religious parties were following the policies of Taliban.

The inept leadership through its whims of Islam would damage women institutions in the province like the Taliban had done in Afghanistan and their successors would have to rebuild these institutions, he warned.