A disorderly house

Parliament resumed on Wednesday December 14 and promptly descended into a cacophony

Parliament resumed on Wednesday 14thDecember and promptly descended into a cacophony. Shouting, catcalls, sloganeering and a siege of the speaker’s dais were the order of the day as Opposition parties attempted again to table a privilege motion submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. As the PTI leader stood to address the speaker PML-N parliamentarians began shouting at him for what they saw as disrespect of the Speaker himself. The ruckus of Wednesday rapidly got itself a repeat performance on Thursday. Speaker Ayaz Sadiq did his best to maintain order but he might as well have addressed the walls of the House rather than its members for all the success he had. The PTI leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi was unrepentant, saying that he would have ‘respected’ the speaker the day before had the Speaker respected the rights of the Opposition rather than acting as a tool of the government. He claimed that it was the Speaker himself that ‘forced’ him into a position of disrespect.



The politics of the street corner and the coarseness of the gutter had found their way into the lower House and we are all the poorer for it. None of the parties present acquitted themselves in a seemly manner commensurate with the institution of Parliament, although the situation was retrieved if not redeemed by an apology by Saad Rafique for using unparliamentary language about the Prime Minister and the House adjourned until 16^th December.

Matters of import to the State, namely the unseating of the Prime Minister by a challenge to his right to hold the position by virtue of having lied to Parliament — were to be discussed. That in itself is right and proper and part of the political hurly-burley — but the hurly-burley is for outside the walls of Parliament, and order and decorum, no matter the gravity of the discussion — within. The world watches as our Parliament becomes little more than a soapbox for ranters, and does little but earn the derision and contempt of the common man viewing proceedings. The nation deserves better than this, but once again our politicians have served us all ill.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2016.

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