MMA Council meeting cancelled: no new date announced

In view of persisting internal differences, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal on Thursday cancelled its Supreme Council meeting. No new date has been fixed yet. The MMA leaders, more importantly Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman sought more time to sink their differences on the issue of the alliance's participation in the National Security Council (NSC) meetings, and some other matters.
The MMA sources said that it was decided during informal contacts between the two big leaders that prior to the Supreme Council meeting, they needed to have further deliberations on whether or not Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Akram Khan Durrani should attend the NSC meetings.
MMA Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman wants his party man, NWFP Chief Minister Durrani to be part of future engagements of the NSC, headed by President General Pervez Musharraf. However, Qazi strongly opposes the option and has threatened to quit as MMA president in case the MMA ended the council's boycott.
To further compound the state of affairs in the six-party shaky alliance, veteran JUI (F) lawmaker Maulana Mohammad Khan Shirani assumed the charge of chairman of a National Assembly Standing Committee without taking the MMA leadership into confidence during the recent session of the assembly.
Maulana Shirani is the third MMA lawmaker to head a parliamentary standing committee after Senator Maulana Samiul Haq and his son MNA Hamidul Haq.
"Yes, the meeting has been postponed for the time being. The main reason is that most of the leaders are preoccupied," maintained Jamaat-i-Islami's Information Secretary Shahid Shamsi while talking to Business Recorder here.
The MMA spokesman said that the alliance leadership would like to develop consensus on certain matters and draw up a strategy on how to participate in the upcoming local government election.
He did not second the viewpoint that the Supreme Council meeting was postponed to simmering Qazi-Fazl differences, saying the alliance's unity was more important for both leaders than rest of the issues.
It might be recalled that Qazi, who could not attend the previous meeting of the highest decision making body of the alliance due to engagement in Karachi wrote a letter to the Supreme Council that he would like to step down as its chief if MMA ended boycott of the National Security Council meetings.