ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties in the All Party Democracy Movement announced on Friday that they would resign their seats in the National Assembly and the provincial legislatures on September 29, the day nomination papers for the October 6 presidential election will be scrutinised.

President Pervez Musharraf is expected to file nomination papers unless the Supreme Court, hearing several identical constitutional petitions seeking to prevent him from contesting, rules against his candidature.

But the Opposition strategy came under a cloud no sooner than it was announced with one of its main leaders, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami, saying he was not consulted.

The Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam is one of the two main constituents of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

And the MMA is one of the leading lights of the APDM, the other main constituents being Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim league (N) and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The JuI runs the NWFP government, and its participation in the resignations is viewed as crucial — the dissolution of even one provincial legislature will render the electoral college incomplete. This will not just undermine the credibility of the election, it will also bring into question its legal validity.

Programme of protests

But Mr. Fazlur Rehman, reported to be in talks with Gen. Musharraf and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, told Geo News from Saudi Arabia, where he is currently on a pilgrimage, that he did not know about the decision to resign from the Assemblies.

However, at an APDM press conference, PML (N) chairman Raja Zafrul Haq said Mr. Fazlur Rehman was fully on board the decision and his participation in the programme of protests was assured when he returned to Pakistan in a couple of days.

Political analysts believe that had the Maulana really wanted to oppose Gen. Musharraf’s election, the JuI would have dissolved the NWFP Assembly immediately upon the announcement of the date for the presidential election and disrupted the election.

But the JuI leader appears to have made himself unavailable for political consultations with other Opposition leaders by choosing this time for umrah.

Undeterred by this, the APDM has said it would hold protests on September 27, the day nominations have to be filed, and from September 30, daily protests and black days against the election.

The JI managed to rustle up a couple of hundred activists outside the Supreme Court on Friday to demand that Gen. Musharraf step down, but there were more policemen, traffic diversions, concertina wire and security precautions than the crowd warranted.