Parliament protest: PM warns opposition against ‘unconstitutional’ clamour

PML-N leaders plan fiercer anti-government protest in National Assembly.

ISLAMABAD:

While Prime Minister Gilani warned that no ‘unconstitutional step’ of the opposition against an elected government will be tolerated, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz plans to continue its anti-government protest when the National Assembly opens a fresh session on Monday.

“The opposition may bring a no-confidence move against [the prime minister] or an impeachment motion against the president if it has developed differences with them,” Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said, while addressing a public meeting after inaugurating development projects at Phalia in Mandi Bahauddin district. He reiterated that the government’s reconciliation policy must not be considered its ‘weakness’.

But officials in the main opposition party, which appears to be struggling to make an impact in the streets in the face of emerging competition by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, said it will build on the strategy adopted during the last session and forcefully criticise the government’s policies and target President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani.

Members of the PML-N resorted to sloganeering and desk thumping in all sittings of the lower house last month. The situation became so tense that at one point, the opposition party’s lawmakers almost came close to physical blows with legislators from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) after both sides criticised each other’s top leaders.

During the October session, the PML-N led a brief sit-in as 100 parliamentarians sat outside the President House to pile up pressure on Zardari, who they have dubbed the ‘most corrupt leader’ in Pakistan’s history. PML-N President Nawaz Sharif also made an appearance at the protest camp outside parliament.

A spokesperson for the party said it will continue to make the government realise that most of its policies were hurting the downtrodden masses. “We will go ahead with the same activities but with even more force,” said Senator Mushahidullah Khan, PML-N information secretary.

Another official said that parliamentarians from the opposition party will hold a meeting ahead of the session to thrash out how to make their protest more forceful to embarrass the government. He said that Nawaz Sharif was scheduled to chair the meeting but had to change his plans due to other pressing engagements in Lahore.

In his absence, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan will chair the meeting.

Parliamentary panel on APC resolution

Mushahidullah said that the party will also seek that the government follow up on the resolution passed in late September in a meeting of Pakistan’s top military and civilian leadership. The resolution endorsed that the government will form a bipartisan parliamentary committee to design a mechanism and lead negotiations with militants including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), led by its fugitive leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

More than a month since then, there hasn’t been any progress on the issue and the PPP is yet to submit its nominations for the parliamentary panel. The PML-N said it wanted to see progress on this.

(Read: The national interest)

(With additional input from APP)

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th,  2011.