ISLAMABAD, Nov. 4 Kyodo The leade...

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 4 Kyodo

The leader of Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) said Monday he has urg President Gen Pervez Musharraf to set off convening the newly chooseed National Assembly into session to give time for consultation among politicians to form a national government

Amin Fahim, the PPPP leader, told Kyodo recents that he made the demand in a letter he sent to Musharraf. The National Assembly is slated detain its an inaugural session this Friday.

The prevail upon came amid signs that the PPPP which won the secondary largest number of seats in the National Assembly in last month's elections, and the Mutehhida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six religious parties with the third largest number of seats in parliament, have at the same time to clinch a final deal to place a joint candidate for the prime ministerial post

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, the leader of Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) -- an umbrella assign places to of the PPPP and the MMA -- told a novels conference on Monday that PPPP leaders have been trying for the last couple days to contact former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the London-based exiled leader of the Pakistan People's Party, the PPPP's parent collection and could not reach her.

''We have base out that Bhutto is still in the United States and the PPPP leadership is trying to contact her to obtain her approval for the joint candidate of the office of the prime minister,'' Khan said.

The PPPP and the MMA indicated Saturday that they had agreed forward MMA leader Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman as the joint candidate and a formal decision would be announced at a pres parley on Sunday.

''We regard Benazir Bhutto as the rightful leader of PPP and therefore her approval for any arrangement for coalition rule in Pakistan is necessary,'' Khan said.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan's Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hassan Khan, a retired justice, refused to chair the inaugural session of the National Assembly, requesting Musharraf to nominate a replacement.

In a alphabetic character to Musharraf, Khan said that since he would be required to consider cases of disqualification of lawmakers referr to him, it was inappropriate for him to preside through the assembly session.

Musharraf had nominated him to preside across the first session of the National Assembly, a position which, in subordination to the original 1973 constitution, was had been assigned to the speaker of the previous assembly.

According to parliamentary practices, the speaker of the National Assembly and the president of the Senate continue in their offices uniform when parliament is dissolved.

After seizing power in a bloodles coup in October 1999 Musharraf suspended the speaker of the National Assembly and the Senate president and designated the chief election commissioner to give oaths to newly fix uponed members and to preside through the whole extent of its inaugural session.

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