New NA council

Council has been instructed to help avoid various “sexist, religious or ethnic slogans” delivered on the floor

The National Assembly speaker has set up a council of senior parliamentarians to get members of the house to adhere to democratic and parliamentary norms. The effort must be praised. All too often, the National Assembly descends into chaos, with language and actions that are embarrassing, to say the least. Uncouth behaviour also goes across party lines. While some may misbehave more than others, any amount of bad behaviour should be intolerable. The floor has, over the years, been used to deliver various “sexist, religious or ethnic slogans” that the council has been instructed to help avoid.

The fact that such a council had to be formed reflects the abject failure of our political parties to train or control their elected officials. Elsewhere in the world, when a parliamentarian does something obnoxious, their own party takes action against them. But not in Pakistan. Here, on the rare occasions where we have seen ‘internal’ censures, it was because the politician said something offensive about a fellow party or alliance member. Opponents remain fair game for vile attacks.

Then there is the issue of habitual absences. In the US House of Representatives, data for the last two years shows that over 90% of members had attendance records of better than 90%. Many of the handful of representatives with attendance records lower than 80% are from non-voting districts — US overseas territories have non-voting delegations. Quorum calls, except as a political tactic or very late in the day, are almost unheard of.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s National Assembly regularly sees sessions called because nobody bothered to show up — 31 of the last 198 sittings had to be adjourned due to quorum rules. Our elected officials regularly forget that while they make the rules, they are also public servants. Their focus, indeed the only reason many of them went to parliament, is to accumulate power, not to provide service. This is illustrated by the fact that power comes simply from being a member of parliament. Service comes from showing up to do their jobs. Whether or not the new council will get members to show up remains to be seen. After all, some of the worst attendance records in recent years have been those of Pakistan’s prime ministers.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2021.

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