ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Opposition parties took their anti-LFO protest outside of parliament on Tuesday to challenge President Pervez Musharraf’s right to speak for Pakistan at the UN General Assembly session.

As the slogan-chanting opposition MPs gathered in front of the parliament house to stage a token hunger strike after a walkout from the National Assembly, the ruling coalition failed to pick up the gauntlet to display any support for the president as they did in a previous similar situation.

The treasury benches carried on listless routine proceedings on a day fixed for private members’ business, enlivened by occasional protests against deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub over his running the lower house in the absence of Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, who is on a foreign trip.

“Shame, shame”, at least three ruling coalition members cried, apparently after losing patience with the chair as the house was adjourned until 9.30am on Friday without allowing them to agitate their objections through points of order.

“How can you carry on like this,” Ishaq Khan Khakwani shouted at the chair.

Earlier, Malik Amin Aslam Khan had walked out in protest after he was disallowed — but allowed later on — to move a privilege motion against what he called rude behaviour of a general manager of the Ghazi Barotha hydel power project in a meeting with him last week.

Water and Power Minister Aftab Sherpao earned some cheers by agreeing to refer the complaint to the privileges committee and promising to implement whatever action was recommended after a probe into the matter.

The opposition members from parties grouped in the ARD and the MMA as well as their smaller allies walked out after about 20 minutes’ desk-thumping and slogan-chanting against President Musharraf and the LFO.

They chanted “go Musharraf go”, “no LFO no” and other slogans as they stormed out of the hall for the sit-in outside the parliament house hours before top MMA leaders were due to meet to decide on a formal response to the government proposals they received last week to settle the 10-month-old row over the LFO.

The ARD, which includes the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-N, led Tuesday’s protest.

“Our war will continue till the revival of the Constitution,” “Our war will continue till the revival of democracy,” the opposition members chanted as they gathered on the Constitution Avenue boulevard outside the parliament house.

The protesters carried two large banners with the same inscription in Urdu and English languages disputing President Musharraf’s right to address the UN General Assembly.

“Unelected and unconstitutional person has no right to address the UN session,” the banners said.

“Gen Musharraf is not the president of this country but a usurper,” PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez said. “We don’t accept him as president even for a day or for a minute.”

MMA deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch said his alliance would not give up its protest till a settlement on the LFO.

In an obvious reference to the government’s reluctance to meet opposition demands, he said: “If the doors for negotiations are closed in this way, we will be forced to come onto streets and then even the military will not be able to save Gen Musharraf’s power.”

Inside the National Assembly, there was no move by the treasury benches to demonstrate their confidence in the president as they did through a resolution last June when he was on a four-nation trip and the opposition parties had said he was not competent to speak for Pakistan.

Malik Amin was allowed to move his privilege motion about the attitude of the Ghazi Barotha project general manager towards the fag-end of the proceedings.

Mr Amin said he had gone to the general manager, an army brigadier, on Sept 17 to seek explanation of a notification that allegedly was in violation of earlier official commitments to provide jobs to local people.

But, he said, he had to walk out of the official’s office with three other people accompanying him after being told by him that he was “not here to listen to this bullshit”.

The member complained of a breach of his privilege as a member of the lower house by what he called “rude and discourteous” behaviour of the official, whom he also accused of disgracing his own uniform.

Mr Sherpao said his ministry had already received an account of the incident from the Water and Power Development Authority but he added he believed parliament members would be speaking truth when making such complaints.

He said he had no objection to the matter being referred to the privileges committee for an inquiry into two aspects of the matter: whether the general manager violated rules about employment of local people and whether he showed disrespect to the assembly member.

“I hope the privileges committee will do justice and we will implement whatever action is recommended,” the minister said to cheers from some treasury benches and thanks from Mr Amin.

Earlier, a call attention notice by two ruling party members, Mr Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Mrs Rozina Tufail, about “continuing increase” in the prices of agricultural inputs was referred to the standing committee concerned and the house continued a debate, carried from the previous Tuesday, over PML member Chaudhry Anwar Ali Cheema’s resolution urging the government to get its houses in Islamabad vacated from illegal occupants.