‘You’re next’, opp tells speaker

ISLAMABAD:

After submission of the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan in the National Assembly, the opposition parties have finalised the same against Speaker Asad Qaiser and Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri.

According to sources, all the opposition parties have signed the no-confidence motion, which amount to more than 100 signatures.

They said with the likely success of the motion of no-confidence against Premier Imran, the motion against the speaker and deputy speaker will be submitted.

“The speaker and deputy speaker will not be able to preside over the meeting after no-confidence motion against the speaker.” PPP leader Khursheed Shah said NA Speaker Qaiser’s number is next after PM Imran.

Khursheed said that once the premier was out of the way, the PPP would go after the speaker, immediately followed by Punjab and then Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
“The president's turn will also come.”

He said that the Senate chairman was trying to support the opposition along with his members.
On Saturday, the opposition leaders criticised Speaker Qaiser over what they termed was his “blatant partisanship” in handling the no-confidence motion, asking the latter to step down from his position or call an immediate session of the lower house.

Sounding alarms over Qaiser’s terming of the opposition’s the no-trust motion a “foreign conspiracy”, both main opposition parties –PPP and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) – said the speaker had failed to discharge his duty as a custodian of the house by showing explicit leanings towards the ruling party.

“By no stretch of imagination, can the speaker of the National Assembly make blatantly partisan statements about the vote of no confidence? This is a constitutional instrument he is trying to obstruct. This act by itself renders him unfit to preside over any such session,” Parliamentary Leader of the PPP in the Senate, Sherry Rehman, said in a statement.

Earlier talking to the media persons, the NA speaker had hit out at the joint opposition, saying that the no-trust move was bound to fail. “Maulana Fazlur Rehman remained part of the government, what did he do for Islam? What kind of Islam are they bringing together with Nawaz Sharif and Zardari?” he wondered, asserting that the ruling party’s lawmakers would give the thumbs down to the no-confidence motion.

Taking great exception to the speaker's linking of the opposition’s efforts to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan with a purported “foreign conspiracy”, the PPP leader asked that by saying that the vote of no-confidence was part of such conspiracy, was Qaiser suggesting that the ruling PTI was only in place due to foreign support.

“Is he a PTI office-bearer or a speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly where he is supposed to safeguard the integrity of the outcome by remaining neutral? By saying that the vote of no confidence will be defeated Asad Qaiser has betrayed his office, and in my view cannot possibly preside over the House or process,” she added. She went on to allege that the incumbent government was pushing the country towards a constitutional crisis and a national security catastrophe.

Former NA speaker and senior PML-N leader Ayaz Sadiq, meanwhile, sounded alarms about the “biased” line taken by the incumbent NA speaker, demanding that an immediate session of the lower house be convened. “If the speaker is so certain about the outcome of the no-confidence vote, then I urge Asad Qaiser to convene a meeting immediately fulfilling the constitutional requirements and allow the members to decide freely,” he said.

“The NA speaker’s explicit leaning towards the ruling party has rendered his position as a custodian of the house controversial,” the PML-N speaker said, asking Qaiser to bring forth evidence before the nation regarding his claims that the efforts for the no-trust motion were being orchestrated under an “international conspiracy”.

“Do you call historical inflation, record foreign debt, economic catastrophe, unemployment and budget deficit a foreign conspiracy?”

Meanwhile, PPP Secretary General Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari also echoed the concerns aired by party leader Sherry Rehman and asked Asad Qaiser to tender immediate resignation.
“The statement of the custodian of the house regarding the failure of the opposition movement is very regrettable,” Bukhari said, adding that the NA speaker has not remained neutral on the issue of the no-confidence motion.