ISLAMABAD, July 31: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal seem to have parted company but kept their doors ajar in case they need to join forces again against the government, which is exulting after dividing them.

The division in the opposition ranks is becoming more and more pronounced with each passing day since the MMA began fresh talks with the government on Sunday over the Legal Framework Order, and the ARD boycotted the parleys.

Both the alliances have questioned the soundness of each other’s stance in the first war of words between them since they got together in November to oppose powers assumed by President General Pervez Musharraf under the LFO.

The two sides are even likely to quarrel over who should hold a public rally on Aug 14 at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh where they had previously planned to be together to mark the start of the so-called “mass contact movement” against the LFO.

Their rivalry is also likely to intensify in their bid for the slots of opposition leaders in the National Assembly and the Senate.

But despite that, each side says its doors are open for future unity between the two alliances in what they have so far called as “the combined opposition”, whose noisy protests have until now paralysed both houses of parliament.

The protests will not be that strong now after the division in the biggest parliamentary opposition in the country’s history, political sources said. While the MMA is unlikely to protest any more after a possible modus vivendi with the government, other opposition parties will have to reconsider their course of action in the new situation, the sources said.

The MMA says it had no option but to join the talks after all main opposition parties agreed on the floor of the National Assembly to Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s offer on July 7 to resume talks on the LFO in a tradeoff for opposition’s withdrawal of a no-confidence move against deputy speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub.

But the ARD, including the People’s Party Parliamentarians, the Pakistan Muslim League-N and their smaller regional allies, says the talks had become meaningless after the government refused to clarify whether it still stood by its standpoint that the LFO was part of the Constitution — a position rejected by all opposition parties.

The ARD sought the clarification after PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain followed up Mr Jamali’s offer with repeated statements during a foreign tour that there could be no reopening of what he called LFO’s “settled issues” such as Gen Musharraf’s stand that only he would decide when he should become a civilian president by giving up the office of the Chief of Army Staff.

The MMA wants the ARD to join the talks when the prime minister decides to resume them possibly in early August. But ARD parties insist the government must first declare that the LFO is not part of the Constitution.

FRESH OVERTURES SPURNED: Mr Jamali, who does not recognize the ARD as a parliamentary group and wants to deal with its components separately, reportedly called PPP president Amin Fahim and PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi on Tuesday night to renew his invitation for talks.

But ARD sources said both politicians told the prime minister that they could not join the talks without a decision by their alliance and in the absence of the clarification sought by it.

Besides, MMA vice-president Qazi Hussain Ahmed met Mr Fahim and

Mr Hashmi on Tuesday only to be told that they were bound by the ARD decision, MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said.

The ARD sees MMA’s participation in the talks and a reported promise to let President Musharraf remain army chief until October 2004 and then elect him as a civilian president as a deviation from previous commitments and anti-LFO declarations of two all-parties conferences held in Lahore on July 6 and in Islamabad on July 26.

ARD sources blame MMA’s latest stance on a perceived concern to safeguard its government in the NWFP and partnership in the ruling coalition in Balochistan.

The MMA denies the charges and says the ARD’s boycott is unjustified after agreeing to talk to settle the dispute over the LFO.