PTI women MPA’s vie for a cabinet seat

Reports of rifts between govt MPAs refuse to go away

PESHAWAR: After the provincial government announced that the cabinet could change yet again — significantly to add two women to the male-dominated body, the 18 women MPAs of the ruling party have started lobbying to get a seat.

Addressing the media after a meeting of the provincial cabinet, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai had suggested that soon, the provincial cabinet could change to include two women MPAs. The statement came after the provincial government and the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) were heavily criticised for failing to include even a single woman to the cabinet even as it recently welcomed 11 new members in the form of two ministers, eight special assistants and an adviser.

Cabinet sources said that under the law, the provincial government can appoint a maximum of 16 ministers — including Chief Minister Mahmood Khan. With the quota for ministers almost full which, the other option is to include these cabinet members either as an adviser or as an assistant.

However, first, the government has a headache in the form of picking between the 18 women lawmakers. The names, the cabinet source said, which are being talked about including the reserved seat for women MPAs Maliha Asghar Khan, Ayesha Bano, and Nadia Sher. These MPAs are serving their second term in the provincial assembly.

Others include Momina Basit and Anita Mehsud, and two others from the newly merged tribal districts (NMTDs).

The source has added that around eight to ten women MPAs could be granted the position of parliamentary secretaries. This group is likely to include two women from NMTDs.

In the last provincial government of PTI, two women were included in the provincial cabinet. Meher Taj Roghani was a special assistant and later deputy speaker, while Anisa Zeb Tarhirkheli as a minister.

Deeping rifts

Reports of rifts between senior members of the provincial government have refused to go away. A day after the provincial government vehemently denied that a CM Mahmood and Atif Khan groups had split the provincial cabinet, reports emerged that the K-P Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani is embroiled in a tussle with Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan

The situation has left the K-P Assembly staff in a conundrum on whose orders to follow, prompting the chief minister to intervene.

The tussle sparked a few months ago when the K-P speaker had issued some directions but the deputy speaker reportedly overruled them. The speaker then reportedly overruled some directives issued by the deputy speaker.

Sources in the K-P Assembly secretariat, who spoke to The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, that the rules dictate the speaker has authority to direct employees on any task relating to the assembly or other related departments.

However, the deputy speaker has also been vying for control and on occasion allegedly directed the employees to bypass orders from the speaker.

In this regard, Jan has been pushing to amend the K Assembly rules to chair meetings of the public accounts committee. But the proposed amendments made no headway as the speaker dismissed it. This apparently widened the purported rift.

The matter, though, has reached CM Mahmood’s office, who has now held three meetings on the issue.

Further, the chief minister directed both the speaker and the deputy speaker to handle the issue without exacerbating the conflict and warned to take up the issue with Prime Minister Imran Khan if the dispute is not settled soon.