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Musharraf to call National Assembly in two weeks

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday that he would summon the National Assembly session within two weeks and the new government would get his full support.

“The national and provincial assembly sessions will be called in a week or one-and-a-half weeks. There will be no hurdle to this,” Pakistan Television showed Gen. Musharraf as saying, as he inaugurated a water-supply project in the Sindh town of Jacobabad.

“I promise if peace is maintained, I will fully support the new coalition governments,” the President said, without elaborating.

Gen. Musharraf described the victory of the moderate Awami National Party in the North West Frontier Province and the rejection of hardline religious parties as a positive sign.

“Now we must concentrate on sustaining the economic growth and continue the fight against extremism and terrorism,” he said, expressing the hope that the next governments at the federal and provincial levels would last their full term in the interests of the economy and stability.

The President also accused vested interests of trying to create the impression that there were differences between him and the Pakistan Army.

On Thursday, Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani too said at a meet of corps commanders that an “impression was being created” that the Pakistan Army was distancing itself from the President, and talked about the “importance of the constitutional relationship between the Army and the national command structure.”

Meanwhile, after allocating the reserved seats for women and minorities, the Election Commission has notified the results for 331 seats out of 342 in the National Assembly. Of the 11 seats that have not yet been notified, seven are under litigation. The election in two constituencies was terminated, and in one it was postponed. One reserved seat has not yet been declared.

The tally in the seats declared so far leaves the alliance of the Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Awami National Party with a combined tally of 223 seats, five short of a two-thirds majority. The decision of the seats under litigation will be important in this respect.

The party-wise tally for 331 seats is as follows:

PPP – 120 seats; PML(N) – 90; PML (Q) – 51; MQM – 25; ANP – 13; MMA – 6; Independents – 18; Others – 8.

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