No legislative business until speaker’s written assurance

Opposition parties place demands during meeting with Asad Qaiser

ISLAMABAD:

The opposition parties on Thursday met the National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser to convey that any step for further talks and legislative business would be linked with him giving assurance in writing that all bills in the joint session and ordinances promulgated would first be discussed at the parliamentary committee stage.

Just after the beleaguered government was defeated twice in assembly and had to put off the joint session of parliament within 24 hours of its summoning, the opposition parties have exerted further pressure and started placing conditions for further talks and legislative business.

The government has decided to use the speaker’s office to get in touch with the opposition parties so that they could move the electoral reforms bills with consensus after seeing the low attendance of the parliamentarians belonging to the ruling PTI and its allies at a lunch hosted by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday.

Taking advantage of the situation where even the government’s allies have expressed reservations over its move to pass electoral reforms bills, including the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and introduction of e-voting for overseas Pakistanis in the next general elections, the opposition parties have put forward conditions for further action.

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Citing the “trust deficit” and the government’s “habit of taking U-turn”, the opposition members said they had decided that they would take further steps, if any, on receipt of a written request from the speaker.

“It is only after we receive the terms in writing from the speaker, and our leadership approves, will any action proceed,” Senator Sherry Rehman said after a meeting of the steering committee of the joint parliamentary opposition.

“The opposition parties met to decide whether or not and how to work on the legislative business that is pending due to the government’s reversal of the joint session that they had called,” the PPP senator added.

“This includes the ordinances that have been promulgated.”

She said all these bills and ordinances could be discussed in the parliamentary committee as we believe in the supremacy of parliament and dialogue, and not in closing our committee doors.

“The opposition leadership will make the final decision after the steering committee deliberates on it.”

Rejecting the government’s claims that the opposition was behind the cancellation of the joint session, Sherry said: “There is no question of us having approached the government or speaker to cancel or reverse the joint session.”

“It [joint session] was called by them and also cancelled because they are politically isolated by their allies; we have nothing to do with it,” Sherry said.

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“In fact, it was cancelled because the government does not have the numbers anymore to bulldoze their bills as their own people and allies have stepped back,” she added.

JUI-F’s Shahida Akhtar Ali also rejected the claim that the opposition had approached the speaker for the cancellation of the session.

“The speaker had started contacting the opposition parties even when the prime minister was delivering a speech at the lunch for his party members and allies. We are not talking to the government, but the speaker,” she clarified.

PML-N’s Shaza Fatima Khawaja also endorsed the statement. “There is a major trust deficit; the government takes a U-turn often and that is why the joint opposition has decided that everything should come in writing from the speaker,” she added.

In addition, Shaza said that in the meeting with the NA speaker, the opposition parties had asked for the reconstitution of the parliamentary committee on the appointment of the chief election commissioner and members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as the current composition clearly gave an edge to the treasury benches.