Pakistan Delays Opening Session of Parliament

Pakistan’s military government on Wednesday postponed the opening session of the newly elected parliament by a week.

The opening had been set for Friday. The government of President Pervez Musharraf said the delay was in response to requests by some political parties and for logistical reasons.

Opposition leaders, however, said the delay was intended to give a pro-Musharraf party a better chance of forming a coalition government. No party won a majority in the Oct. 10 elections.

Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the main opposition group, the Pakistan People’s Party, said the postponement was meant “to bolster the chances of the king’s party,” a reference to a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, the PML-Q, which backs Musharraf.

The pro-Musharraf party holds 103 of parliament’s 342 seats.

The Pakistan People’s Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has 80 seats, followed by the United Action Forum, a grouping of Islamic parties, with 59. Smaller parties and independents together control the remaining 100 seats.

The Islamic alliance said that it had reached an agreement with pro-democracy parties to form a majority coalition and that they had put forward a hard-line Islamic cleric as their choice for prime minister.

The decision to delay the session followed a request by the pro-Musharraf party.