Islamabad, June 10: Pakistan's opposition parties today stepped up their agitation against President Pervez Musharraf and his constitutional amendments by announcing the boycott of the week-long budget debate after staging noisy protests in both the houses of parliament. As the National Assembly and senate began their sessions to debate the budget presented last weekend by the government, members of mainstream opposition parties as well as Islamist Alliance, Muthahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) stood up and shouted slogans against Musharraf and the Legal Framework Order (LFO) issued by him to legalise his constitutional amendments.

In National Assembly, the opposition members initially chanted slogans like, 'go Musharraf go' and 'no LFO no' and later returned the copies of the budget circulated to them to the officials and staged a noisy walkout.
Last minute efforts by ruling party leaders and Pakistan Finance Minister, Shoukat Aziz to bring the opposition members back failed to convince them.

In Senate too, the opposition members enacted similar scenes and boycotted the budget debate. The voting on the budget, which was presented on June 7 amid uproarious scenes would take place next week.

The boycott followed the decision by a joint meeting of the opposition parties here last night to not to hold talks with government on the LFO until Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali convened the meeting of leaders of opposition.
The meeting was supposed to have been held on May 30 but it was not convened.

Bureau Report