Utter contempt: K-P Assembly bows out amid cries of ‘shame’

Assembly speaker, chief minister, opposition leader and most lawmakers skip final session

PESHAWAR: The cries of ‘shame, shame’ echoed in a largely empty hall of the provincial assembly on Monday as the curtain was drawn for the last time before the general elections on July 25.

Having gathered a substantial crowd to vote for the historic amendment which merged the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) just a day before, fewer than 20 per cent of lawmakers had turned up for the session on Monday.

With a notification for its dissolution for the bewitching hour already issued by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Law Department under article 107 of the Constitution, the assembly resembled more a classroom on the last day of school before the summer vacations rather than the successful completion of a democratic tenure.

K-P Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had summoned the last sitting of the parliament for 11am on Monday soon after the assembly had passed the historical Fata merger bill on Sunday.

But come Monday morning, he was nowhere to be seen in the assembly. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, following in the footsteps of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, too skipped the session. Even leader of the opposition felt that his time would be better spent anywhere which was not the K-P assembly observing its last day.

Only the parliamentary leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) Sardar Hussain Babak turned up to accord some respect to the assembly.

With Qaiser not bothering to attend the last sitting, it was left to PTI lawmaker Mehmood Jan, who was the panel of chairman for the session, to chair the sitting.

Despite scheduled to start at 11am, the session started belatedly at around 12:20pm with just 18 lawmakers present. The quorum remained incomplete throughout the sitting.

After the recitation of the holy Quran, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Ziaullah Afridi pointed out the incomplete quorum. It was fitting that Afridi, who was a member of the PTI-led government’s cabinet and became the first lawmaker to be expelled for corruption, call for curtains in the last session of the PTI government’s assembly.

Jan obliged Afridi and asked the assembly staff to ring the bells for two minutes and then count the number of lawmakers in attendance.

It turned out that the quorum was incomplete. Before proroguing the session, Jan proceeded offered a few words of thanks to the lawmakers and assembly staff.

“Today our assembly completed its five-year term and it was our last sitting. I pray that God brings back all those to the assembly who are in favour of this province and country,” he prayed, before proceeding to read out the message of K-P governor to prorogue the session for an indefinite period.

As he started to read out the governor’s message, lawmakers from the opposition benches started chanting slogans of “shame, shame.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2018.