Senate political battle overshadows fiscal debate

Dar, Haidri meet with Senate chairman to try to resolve the issue.


Zahid Gishkori June 10, 2011

ISLAMABAD:


The unending row over the controversial nomination of Abdul Ghafoor Haidri of the JUI-F as Senate opposition leader prevented the upper house of Parliament from debating the finance bill as PML-N legislators insisted on dealing with the leadership issue before moving on to discussing fiscal policy.


“There will be no debate on the budget without resolving this issue,” said Senator Ishaq Dar, the PML-N leader in the upper house.

Haidri, the current Senate opposition leader, and Dar, the PML-N’s nominee for the position, met with Senate Chairman Farooq Naik in his chamber in the Parliament House on Thursday to try to resolve the issue. Naik had appointed Haidri on Monday, in a move that aroused criticism from even senators of his own party, including the much-respected Raza Rabbani.

In the face of the heated opposition, Naik announced that the decision would be reviewed after consultation with experts on constitutional law. Dar and Haidri had agreed to hold a debate on the issue next week, but Dar appeared to backtrack from his earlier position today, insisting that the leadership issue in the opposition be resolved before the Senate can move forward with discussing the budget for fiscal year 2012.

While the Senate cannot constitutionally vote on the budget, it must submit its recommendations to the National Assembly, which then considers whether or not to adopt them in the final bill.

Yet the Senate’s recommendations hold considerable weight since nearly all of the political parties’ stack the Senate with their experts on public policy matters – Ishaq Dar of the PML-N, Hafeez Shaikh of the PPP, Bushra Gohar of the ANP, Ahmed Ali of the MQM and Khursheed Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The leadership issue was initially raised by Raja Zafarul Haq of the PML-N, who was supported in his motion by the Jamaat-e-Islami and dissenting legislators of the PML-Q.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2011.

COMMENTS

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ