May 17, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429

LAHORE, May 16: PML-Q leader Hamid Nasir Chattha is starting a series of meetings with the party’s ‘forward bloc’ members during the next few days in an attempt to maintain party’s unity at a time it is bracing for a new role because of the differences between the PPP and the PML-N, the two major coalition partners.

Party sources say it was because of the requirement of the changing situation that President Musharraf and the Chaudhrys have agreed to resolve their differences, abandoning the plan to change the party leadership for some time.

PML-Q leaders say the nature of relationship between the PPP and the PML-N would become clear during the next few weeks, indicating that talks between the PPP and the PML-Q for cooperation could be started after the budget session.

Many of those who have formed forward bloc want the party leadership to get closer to the PPP to be able to form government as they could not afford to sit on the opposition benches. However, some of them are in favour of cooperation between the PML-Q and the PML-N.

One leader said the patch-up between the Chaudhrys and President Musharraf augured well for the future of the PML-Q. Had it not been reached, the party would have been damaged, he said.

On the other hand, Punjab PML-N President Zulfikar Khosa said on Friday that the future of the provincial coalition depended on the future conduct of the PPP.

He said in case the PPP followed President Musharraf’s line, the consequences would be tragic for the country.

Khosa, whose son Dost Muhammad is the Punjab chief minister, said the PML-N had already declared that although its ministers had quit the federal cabinet, the party would not destabilize the PPP government. The PML-N, he said, would like the PPP to reciprocate in the same way.

However, he made it clear that when the PML-N did not recognize President Musharraf, it would not recognize his governor in Punjab.

The PML-N leader said his party was committed to the restoration of the judiciary to its pre-Nov 3 shape and it was for this reason that the party had expressed its support for the lawyers movement.