PESHAWAR, Nov 30: Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Jamali said he would consult President Gen Pervez Musharraf and his party on the issues raised during his two-hour meeting with the MMA leaders at the Governor’s House on Saturday.
Emerging from talks with MMA leaders Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Prime Minister Jamali said efforts would be made to convince each other. “I can’t run the country on my own. We will run it collectively,” he said. “We will strive to give a better system to the country.”
FRIDAY HOLIDAY: On the MMA’s demand to declare Friday as a weekly holiday, the prime minister recalled that this had been done through an executive order during the Nawaz Sharif government. He promised to look into the matter and issue an order soon declaring Friday as a weekly holiday again.
He said that his visit to Peshawar was very good and the MMA government and the federal government would cooperate with each other by keeping themselves within the parameters of the constitution. He assured that his government would not create any problems for the MMA government in the NWFP.
QAZI AHMAD: The Jamaat-i-Islami chief said that their main demand was the restoration of the Constitution in its original form and the supremacy of parliament.
He argued that a president in military uniform was unacceptable to them. He said that the MMA had asked as to when would the president relinquish the office of the chief of army staff and the same question had been raised again.
He said that the MMA would convene its central council meeting in a couple of days for the resumption of talks with the government.
FAZLUR REHMAN: The JUI-F leader said the MMA believed that the LFO was not part of the constitution. Similarly, he said, the MMA believed that issues like the restoration of Article 58(2)(b), National Security Council and the election of the president through referendum needed to be discussed and solutions found. “The constitution endorses our opinion,” he said.
He said that real transfer of power would happen only when the president relinquished the office of the chief of army staff. He said that they also asked the prime minister to restore Friday as a weekly holiday and they had been given assurances to the effect. He sounded optimistic after the talks and said that a solution could be found in the next two to three days.
EARLIER: While talking to newsmen soon after Akram Khan Durrani was sworn in as chief minister of the NWFP, the prime minister said that he was happy that the MMA and PML-Q were forming a coalition government in Balochistan. “They are our partners there.”
Jamali said that people had voted for the MMA and it was the right of the six-party religious alliance to form a government in the NWFP. “And we are happy over this.”
He brushed aside apprehensions of a row between the centre and the MMA-led government in the NWFP. “Nobody should have any apprehensions that someone from the centre would either bother or take some action against the MMA government here.”
The PM evaded a question regarding the formation of an MMA government in the NWFP and Pakistan’s support to the US in its global war on terrorism.
“This is Pakistan and Pakistan’s interests are dearer to us than anything.” He said he did not know of apprehension in Washington over the ascension to power of the religious right in the NWFP. “I have not read about this anywhere. Have you?,” he asked the reporter who had posed the question.
Asked when the government planned to convene the postponed session of the Sindh Assembly, Jamali said only the Governor Sindh had the powers to convene it. “It will be convened by those who have the powers to do so. It is our endeavour that a government is formed in Sindh.”
Jamali also evaded a question regarding the MQM’s decision to withdraw support to the government in the Centre and sit in the opposition.
