Members of the new National Assembly (Lower House of Parliament), elected in the Feb 18 parliamentary polls, took oath Monday. Speaker Chaudhry Ami Hussain, who will leave this office during this weak after the election of his successor, administered the collective oath to the MPs. After that, every member signed the register of the National Assembly Secretariat. A total of 328 MPs were administered oath. The National Assembly has a total of 342 MPs. Fourteen seats are vacant for which by-elections will be held in the next two months. Prominent PPP leader Raja Pervez Ashraf urged the speaker to allow prayers for Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered on Dec. 27 last at an election rally at Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh. Another PPP leader Syed Naveed Qamar said that all the MPs of the next ruling coalition are taking oath under the un-amended unanimously passed Constitution of 1973, and they don't accept the constitutional amendments made by President Pervez Musharraf. The new legislature comprised 60 percent new faces, as 192 of them became its members for the first time. Nearly eighty-five percent members from Balochistan reached to Lower House for the first time. Similarly, 19 out of the 32 MPs from the North West Frontier Province or NWFP are new faces, while from Punjab 77 members, from Sindh 28 MPs and from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 7 members were elected for the first time. At least forty-four women and minority communities were elected on the reserved seats. The swearing-in of the 13th National Assembly was held amid unprecedented security arrangements. Seats allocation inside the circular hall was made alphabetically and the names of members for signing the roll were called in the same order. Meanwhile, three prominent political actors watched Monday's landmark inaugural proceedings of the Lower House from the VVIP visitors' gallery while the fourth player was all ears to the affair at a stone's throw away. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Zardari and former Prime Minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif, who are yet to be elected to the Lower House, and pro-Musharraf PML-Q Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, who suffered defeat in the Feb 17 general elections, sat in the gallery, watching their legislators taking oath. The two allies, Sharif and Zardari, did not have even eye contacts with Hussain even once as they sat in different galleries. All these three leaders were flanked in the gallery by their top close party men. These were moments of triumph for Zardari and Sharif. Hussain had a different feeling altogether. The most significant player, President Musharraf, monitored the going-on in the Parliament building, adjoining his palace, from the nearby Rawalpindi at his camp office. He was more interested in what happened in the closed-door joint parliamentary meeting of the PPP, PML-N and Awami National Party (ANP). He continued to wish, dream and endeavor that this alliance splits. Yet another important political player, Altaf Hussain, remained dug in his cozy London home when the historic session took place. But he kept himself fully updated about the happenings inside the Parliament building. __
