ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: The two houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies will meet on Thursday to give what seems to be a sure vote of confidence to President Pervez Musharraf to affirm his incumbency.

Immediately after passage of the 17th constitutional amendment bill that provided for a one-time confidence vote only for him, the president summoned both the 342-seat National Assembly and the 100-seat Senate to meet separately at the parliament house in Islamabad at 11am.

The provincial assemblies of the Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province and Balochistan were summoned by the provincial governors to meet at the same time at their respective provincial capitals.

Component parties of the ARD will boycott the vote along with their allies and mark the occasion as a "black day" to protest against what they call inclusion of the controversial LFO in the Constitution through the new bill.

The MMA, which joined hands with the ruling coalition to pass the bill by more than the required two-thirds majority in the National Assembly and the Senate, said its members would be present during the ballot to be conducted by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Irshad Hassan Khan but would not cast their votes.

Official sources said Gen Musharraf, allowed by the new amendment to retain the Chief of the Army Staff's office for another year along with the presidency, had been assured of majority support during the meetings he had held in the past few days with members of parliament and the provincial assemblies in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Gen Musharraf, who took power on Oct 12, 1999, and assumed the presidency the next year, got himself elected to the office through a controversial referendum in March last year - an act made part of the Constitution through the LFO. But he agreed to seek a vote of confidence from a 1,170-member electoral college to honour the government-MMA agreement, which led to the approval of the LFO after 13 months of noisy opposition protests in the National Assembly and the Senate.

The result of Thursday's vote would be decided by a simple majority of the members voting. While the present membership of the National Assembly and the Senate stands at 341 and 99 respectively after the death of one member of each house, the strength of the four provincial assemblies is: Punjab 371, Sindh 168, NWFP 124, and Balochistan 65.

A new clause (8) added in article 41 of the Constitution by the new amendment says any member or members of a house of parliament or a provincial assembly could move a resolution for the vote of confidence for a "further affirmation of the president" in office by a "majority of the members present and voting" in a special session called for the purpose.

NO QUESTIONS OR SPEECHES: Special rules issued by the government on Wednesday said voting on the resolution for the vote of confidence would be held in each house through the traditional parliamentary division to be supervised by presiding officers appointed by the CEC and no questions or points of order could be allowed during the process.