ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: Irresolution hit the National Assembly on Monday as the government failed to move a promised resolution for the restoration of deposed judges, triggering a break-up of the ruling coalition and a search for new allies. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani made a vocal appearance apparently to boost his colleagues’ morale when treasury benches appeared depleted even before the Pakistan Muslim League-N announced its decision to walk out of the five-month-old coalition after feeling betrayed by the leadership of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party.

But the house was adjourned quite early in the evening amid a continuing debate on law and order shortly after the prime minister left the house after replying to some questions when information had begun trickling in the galleries about the PML-N central committee’s decision to part company with the PPP and sit in opposition benches.

Only a few PML-N law-makers were present in the house still occupying their seats on the government’s side when their leaders met at the capital’s hillside Punjab House. Only one PML-N member, Birjees Tahir, could speak as the day’s second speaker. She called for the implementation of agreements made by the PPP and PML-N leaders to reinstate the deposed judges.

Only one senior PML-N member, Tehmina Daultana, arrived in the house and went to the desks of several people on both sides of the house apparently whispering the party decision into their ears but no one had made a formal announcement when Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi adjourned the proceeding until 5pm on Tuesday.

Mr Gilani arrived in the house at the fag-end of the question hour and chose to give replies to some minor questions, prompting PPP chief whip Khurshid Ahmed Shah to call it a ‘historic day’. Although Mr Gilani has done it in previous sessions as well, he has yet to fulfil his promise about starting a prime minister’s question hour on the pattern of the British House of Commons.

The walkout by 92 PML-N members of the house will at once turn the PPP-led coalition into a minority government before the expected side-switching by some of the ardent former Musharraf loyalists, which is likely to happen on Tuesday.

The four parties of the coalition government, which took office on March 31, themselves formed a comfortable 235-member majority in the 342-seat house, including 124 members of the PPP, 13 of the Awami National Party and six of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam faction of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, besides support from most of the 18 independents, mainly from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

But the departure of the PML-N will reduce the remainder three-party coalition to 143 members and even support from all of the 18 independents will leave them short of nine members to have a simple majority of 171 among the present 340 members of the house, whose two seats are yet to be filled by by-elections.

Political sources said the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which is a PPP ally in the Sindh provincial government but sits on opposition benches in the National Assembly, was waiting in the wings to come over to the ruling coalition with its 25 members and get a substantial share of ministries if the PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif does not accept PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s apology in a speech over television for breaking his written pledges about the restoration of the judges.

Both sides had agreed to bring a resolution to the National Assembly on Monday for its passage before the judges could be reinstated to their Nov 2 positions through an executive order of the government.

But the PPP said the resolution could not be brought as it was not drafted after the PML-N boycotted the joint drafting committee in protest after the PPP nominated Mr Zardari as its candidate for the Sept 6 presidential election.

An Aug 7 agreement between Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif said a non-partisan nationally respected pro-democracy person would be put forward as the consensus presidential candidate if the office still retained its present powers sanctioned by the controversial 17th constitutional amendment.

But it allowed the PPP as the majority party to name its own candidate if the 17th amendment was repealed and the presidential office was divested of the controversial powers to dissolve the National Assembly, sack a prime minister and appoint armed forces chiefs and provincial governors.