ISLAMABAD, April 22: Conciliation talks between the government and opposition parties seemed imminent on Tuesday after the opposition shouting forced another adjournment of the National Assembly until Thursday.
While Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali reportedly began sending invitations for the talks — possibly on Friday — the opposition parties protested against President Pervez Musharraf’s remarks in Lahore on Monday that he would address only “a civilised assembly”.
The opposition parties also said they would talk to the prime minister not separately but as combined opposition, which includes the People’s Party Parliamentarians, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and their smaller regional allies.
Inside the assembly hall, the parties blocked proceedings for the fourth day running by desk-thumping and shouting slogans against President Musharraf and the Legal Framework Order.
As on previous days, opposition members stood on their seats and began chanting “no LFO no”, “go Musharraf go,” and desk-thumping immediately after the recitation from the holy Quran.
It was the noisiest day of the current session as the opposition members’ shouts and desk-thumping with bare hands or with leather folders or notebooks neutralized attempts by ruling coalition members to speak out through mikes put on high volume so they could be heard.
A helpless speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain who tried to carry on with the agenda for the private members’ day on Tuesday — as he did on Monday with some success — complained at one point that “desk-thumping had wronged the sound system” and abruptly adjourned the house until 10am on Thursday after only 48 minutes’ sitting.
Immediately after the shouting began, President of the PML-Q Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain could barely be heard saying that the opposition should have used the private members’ day to bring a private constitution amendment bill against the LFO instead of chanting slogans to block the proceedings.
Dr Sher Afgan Niazi and Chaudhry Wasi Zafar, who have joined the PPP-Patriots, were greeted with shouts of “lota, lota” as they rose on points of order to make hardly-audible speeches to denounce the opposition protest.
Salim Jan Mazari of the National Alliance unsuccessfully tried to raise a discussion on a newspaper report that Pakistan had agreed to urgent UN inspections for chemical weapons that it said it did not possess.
But two women members of the treasury benches — Shamim Akhtar and Afsar Begum — were able to move a call-attention notice amidst noise about what they called “illegal and additional electricity bills” being sent by the Water and Power Development Authority to users in Hyderabad.
Water and Power Minister Aftab Sherpao assured them of an inquiry and to rectify the situation.
Some other members of the treasury benches also tried to denounce the protesters but the noise drowned their speeches.
PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who said he met Mr Jamali at a common friend’s house on Monday, told reporters he had learnt the prime minister had sent an invitation to him for talks while the MMA had already received one.
But he said opposition parties would go to the talks together.
PML-N acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi said he had also received an invitation.
Mr Fahim described President Musharraf’s reported remarks against the opposition protest as “undemocratic” and “non-serious”, but the outspoken Hashmi called them “uncivilised” and “an abuse to the nation”.
Mr Fahim said the opposition parties were firm in their stand that the LFO could become a part of the constitution only if approved by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly and the Senate as required for any constitutional amendment.