ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: The Senate passed the 17th constitutional amendment bill by more than the required two-thirds majority on Tuesday, completing a parliamentary endorsement of President Pervez Musharraf’s powers and laws he made since taking power more than four years ago.

The bill was passed by 72 votes to nil after more than half of the opposition in the 100-seat upper house boycotted the process at its final stage.

The bill has been sent to President Gen Pervez Musharraf who is likely to accord his assent on Wednesday, official sources said.

The bill, endorsed in the same shape as it was passed by the National Assembly on Monday with minor amendments to the original draft, has been sent to the president for assent.

The announcement of the 72-0 vote count by Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro was greeted with desk-thumping by treasury and MMA benches and a speech by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali who said he wanted to make a new beginning of cooperation among political forces.

“I would like to start a new Pakistan....,” he said, and added: “If we start digging old graves we will be caught in a quagmire.”

But he did not seem ready for a concession when an MMA senator proposed to let former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif return home and release arrested opposition leaders such as ARD President Javed Hashmi, Senator Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N MNA Abid Sher Ali.

“Let the law of the land apply equally to everybody, whether he is a prime minister or a chief minister....,” the prime minister said while referring to the proposal from MMA’s Prof Ghafoor Ahmed, who said “we should now start a new era”.

“So long as we disregard law, complications will increase,” Mr Jamali said.

He said if any of the politicians living abroad wanted to return “I have no objection” and that his government would respect judgments of courts in cases they have to face.

The bill, which was opposed by the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and its smaller allies, marks the implementation of the major portion of the government-MMA accord that also requires the president to seek a vote of confidence from both houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies, all of which are likely to meet for the purpose separately on Jan 1.

The ARD and its allies will boycott the confidence vote as well and mark the occasion as a “black day,” while the MMA has committed to ensuring presence of its members in the proceedings in the legislatures though they would not be bound to cast their votes.

Tuesday’s vote also marked the formal division of what used to be the combined opposition of the ARD, the MMA and several smaller and regional parties.

Now the ARD and its allies, who call themselves as the “genuine opposition” and deride the MMA as a “loyal opposition”, have demanded separate seats for their members in both houses of parliament and pressed their claims to the offices of leader of the opposition in each chamber.

The MMA, whose strength in the Senate decreased to 21 from 22 — the same as the ARD and its allies — after the death of alliance chief Allama Shah Ahmad Noorani earlier this month, suffered another setback on Tuesday when one of its vice-presidents, Prof Sajid Mir, refused to vote for the amendment bill and joined the ARD-led walkout.

MMA senators walked alongside the ruling coalition members led by PML-Q to the “ayes” lobby to register their votes for the bill when the chairman called the traditional parliamentary division.

Because of the walkout by the opposition, nobody went to the “noes” lobby to vote against the 10-clause bill.

Prime Minister Jamali, in his speech, thanked the MMA for carrying out its commitments made in the accord the two sides signed on Dec 24, and said his government would continue to benefit from the alliance’s counsel in future as well.

“The flexibility and patience shown by both the MMA and treasury benches is commendable and I am thankful to them,” he said. “Each side made a sacrifice for the sake of democracy and parliament.”

He said the bitterness seen during the government-opposition confrontation over the LFO should be a matter of the past and “we should look to future”.

The prime minister said no political group could work in isolation and urged the MMA not to hesitate in advising the government to correct any mistakes. “For the betterment of Pakistan you will not find us wanting.”

The bill endorses the LFO-inserted article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution that gives the president powers to sack a prime minister and dissolve the National Assembly, provides for one-time vote of confidence to be taken by Gen Musharraf from parliament and the four provincial assemblies and allows him to remain army chief for one more year.

The bill largely retains the president’s powers seen by opposition parties as a negation of parliamentary system of government.

It provides that in case of dissolution of the National Assembly or of a provincial assembly by the provincial governor, a reference will be made to the Supreme Court for a decision about the justification of the action.

The extension given by the president in the retirement age of judges of the superior judiciary to 68 years from 65 for a Supreme Court judge and to 65 from 62 for a high court judge has been cancelled.