Rivals try to win broader support

Pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) and rival Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA)) religious alliance yesterday scrambled to widen support for their prime ministerial candidates ahead of the first meeting of the hung parliament.

Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, PML-QA candidate for the slot of prime minister, claimed he was gaining ground and predicted his victory by a comfortable margin against MMA's prime ministerial nominee Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

"When the election is held in the National Assembly I hope to get more than 180 votes," Jamali said.

Four fringe groups with one seat each in the assembly - PML-Chattha, PML-Zia, Tehrik-e-Insaaf and Pakistani Awami Tehrik - held a meeting to decide whom to support, but said they would announce their joint stand tomorrow.

The 122-seat PML-QA, the largest single party in the assembly, enjoys the support of 16 members of the National Alliance and some other fringe parliamentary groups, but needs more votes to reach 172, the minimum required to win.

The 68-seat MMA is counting mainly on support of 81-seat Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), 19-seat PML-N, eight of the 12 independents elected to the assembly from Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The MMA claims it would also get support from some minor groups in the assembly.

The PPPP and the PML-N are the main components of Alliance for Restoration for Democracy (ARD) headed by veteran politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan.

The secretary general of PPP, Reza Rabbani, along with some other party leaders met Nasrullah Khan for consultations on a formal ARD deal with the MMA. PPP sources said the party had not yet received a go-ahead signal from its chairperson and former prime minsiter Benazir Bhutto to finalise a pact with the MMA.

Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hasan Khan declined to chair the inaugural session of the 342-member National Assembly scheduled for Friday.

In a letter to President Pervez Musharraf, Khan said cases relating to qualification and disqualification of parliament members would be referred to him in future.

"The propriety, therefore, demands that you may nominate some other suitable person for presiding over the first session of the National Assembly," he told the president.