Islamabad: However controversial its tactics, the West Pakistan government had made considerable progress by last week in extending military control over the bloodied eastern wing, and seemed to be switching ground to find ways to stabilise the political situation. In this, its initial moves were decidedly naive - the clustering of minor opponents of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman around a banner aimed mainly at organising public demonstrations of solidarity with the army struggle to "safeguard the country's unity". Faced with the realisation that these individuals could not fill the vacuum caused by the banning of Mujib's Awami League, President Yahya Khan apparently was planning to guarantee parliamentary rights to all Awami League politicians willing to declare themselves loyal to Pakistan's "integrity".

In last December's general elections, the Awami League captured all but two of East Pakistan's 162 constituencies. The military regime now is confident that at least 100 of the elected candidates will accept Yahya's offer on the reasoning that they had been ready to follow the autonomist - not secessionist - Sheikh Mujib. Narul Amin, the former chief minister and one of the two who withstood the Awami League's popularity assault on constituencies, already has begun to contact the parliamentarians-in-limbo. Tipped to join him in his efforts: Begum Akhtar Suleman, daughter of a former premier. The lady's role was all the more ironic to those who remembered that Mujib revered her father as his ideal.

Whether the government's ploy would work remained to be seen, for it was widely accepted even in the western wing that Mujib, to a certain degree, was pushed into his secessionist position by Islamabad's misreading of the situation in the eastern region. And even to moderate Awami Leaguers, the military intervention doubtless helped confirm what their now incarcerated leader used to call "West Pakistan's colonial rule over East Bengal".

Thus, an important precondition for any West Pakistani success in winning a political solution to the conflict was likely to be some promise by the military regime to grant a degree of autonomy which would free the easterners from the feeling that they are indeed colonial underlings.

Yahya, in fact, always has been willing to do just that. He reportedly is guided by such sentiments in his current talks with legal experts concerning the framing of an interim constitution - intended as a basis for central government as well as to assist in a transfer of power to politicians in the five provinces.

If this is Yahya's intention, it can hardly meet with the approval of PPP (Pakistan People's Party) leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who is anxious to get the official seal on his electoral win in West Pakistan. In turn, Bhutto's methods have given his opponents plenty of fuel for criticism: Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a Bhutto confidant and party secretary general for the Punjab, recently suggested Yahya should first transfer power in the western provinces, giving East Pakistan its turn "when conditions there permit". Khar derided the proposal that nationwide elections should be held again - because of the ban on the Awami League - declaring that Pakistan, poor and passing through a crisis, could not afford "the luxury of a second election".

Khar further argued that the elected Awami Leaguers should continue to be national assemblymen in their own right, perhaps participating as independent deputies. Yes, he said, the Awami Leaguers could even be allowed to join other parties - "including our own" - as long as they disowned their leaders and declared a belief in one Pakistan.

In all, Khar made Bhutto's position clear: with the banning of Mujib's party, the PPP leader sees himself as the chief of Pakistan's majority party. From this disputable position he has derived a power claim which hardly corresponds with the election results. Last week, it seemed Bhutto's ambitions represented as big a hurdle on the road to political solution as Yahya's difficulties in winning the confidence of a "purified" Awami League.