NA session: Current tenure of PPP govt longest in last two decades

Voted into power back in February 2008, the fragile coalition setup has been through all sorts of shocks.

ISLAMABAD: The incumbent administration will become the longest surviving government of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in two decades when the National Assembly opens today (Monday) for the last session of its third parliamentary year.

Voted into existence back in February 2008, the fragile coalition setup has been through all sorts of political, economic and diplomatic shocks during its tenure but managed to survive.

Observers of Pakistan’s beleaguered politics attribute this ‘success’ more to the limitations of political and ‘other’ opponents of the PPP rather than the party’s skills to sail through the challenges.

At the heart of today’s session would be the matter of how the government moves to keep a promise with the main opposition party of embarking upon ambitious economic and administrative reforms. Earlier this month the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) put the government under a threat to initiate, what it called an agenda, to steer the country out of a worsening economic crisis.

“We will see how the government delivers on its promises…if we feel it is going to behave the same way it has been for the past three years, we will protest in the parliament and of course outside as well,” a PML-N leader said, adding, “One thing we expect the government to do during the upcoming sessions is to bring to the house a legislation to replace the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) with a new institution.”

It is however highly unlikely that the government will present the draft bill in the assembly, that is lingering in a house committee for more than a year-and-a-half now.

It also seems that there is no immediate threat for the government to carry out any other legislation after one of its angry allies, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), rejoined the ruling coalition after walking out of it briefly this month.

Also, interesting to watch would be whether and how the government goes ahead with the promised plan to cut the size of the cabinet. On Saturday, a key government official said that an inner circle of the PPP had given a go-ahead to the plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2011.