Pro-Gen party for tie-up with hardliners

‘‘We believe it is going to be difficult to have any coalition with the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party).’’ The PML-Q executive was speaking a day after the party’s first post-election talks with the PPP of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto.

The PML-Q, backed by President Pervez Musharraf, and the Opposition PPP won 77 and 63 seats respectively in the elections, but both fell short of the 137-seat majority needed to form government. Both parties have been courting the MMA, which won 45 seats in massive gains.

PML-Q’s parliamentary leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said before the talks that he favoured the MMA. ‘‘Informally, I think we’ll go with the mullahs,’’ Hussain said here. ‘‘It’s better to have them in government than in Opposition.’’

Meanwhile, Musharraf has made it clear that he will ‘‘respect the wish of the Parliament’’ and will not object even if the new government is opposed to his constitutional reforms and referendum.

‘‘Whatever the wish of Parliament, the President will hold it supreme,’’ Musharraf’s press secretary Maj. Gen. Qureshi said here. On the MMA’s choice for pro-Taliban cleric Fazlur Rehman for the PM’s post, Qureshi said: ‘‘As to the results of the elections and the emergence of the MMA, it is important that this is the wish of the people of Pakistan and one has to respect them’’.