In a boost to opposition parties spearheading a campaign against President Pervez Musharraf's re-election bid, a key opposition party holding power in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province has joined the ranks of other outfits opposed to the general and agreed to recommend dissolution of the NWFP Assembly.
Jamaat-ul-Islami, which is part of the exiled premier Nawaz Sharif-led All Parties Democratic Movement, has announced that all its legislators would resign en bloc from the national and provincial assemblies on October 2.
The decision was taken after a meeting held at the residence of Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League-N general secretary Zafar Iqbal Jhagra in Peshawar on Thursday night.
JUI chief and leader of the opposition in the national assembly Fazalur Rehman said his party legislators would recommend to NWFP governor to dissolve the provincial assembly.
"This august forum has decided that members of the national assembly will hand over their resignations to Central leaders of the parties in the APDM, while members of the provincial assemblies will send their resignations to their provincial heads on September 29," Rehman, who is also the general secretary of the Muthahida Majlis Alliance, said.
Rehman's announcement that NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani will send an advice to the governor on October 2 seeking dissolution of the provincial assembly was greeted with cheers from his party men with slogans "God is Great" and and "Long live the APDM leadership."
"Heads of the parties of the APDM will submit their members' resignation to the office of the speaker of the national and provincial assemblies on October 2," Rehman said.
The opposition parties will continue their struggle to end military rule and will block re-election of Musharraf, he said.
Besides NWFP, which is one of the four provinces, the JUI decision to quit assemblies will also affect the Balochistan assembly as it shares power with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q there.
If the NWFP assembly is dissolved, then the electoral college of the presidential election will be restricted to the national assembly, Senate and the provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan where Musharraf has a majority.
Rehman's announcement means that all the MMA members of the national assembly numbering around 60 would quit along other opposition parties except the Pakistan Peoples Party headed by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which has fielded its own candidate Amin Fahim to oppose Musharraf.
Rehman, a pro-Taliban politician, apparently decided to join ranks of Sharif and his allies as Musharraf moved closer to Bhutto, who is averse to joining any alliance with religious parties who she asserts were acting as a stumbling bloc to social and religious reforms in Pakistan.
Bhutto is currently chartering her own course by working out an alliance of sorts with Musharraf.
APDM's move is the first major concerted move by the opposition parties to resign from the assemblies to deny any credibility for Musharraf's re-election, which its leaders assert was illegal and unconstitutional as he cannot seek re-election from the same assemblies, which elected him 2002.
