Negotiators from the government and opposition on Wednesday managed to break the deadlock on a constitutional amendment vital to restoring the membership of 28 suspended parliamentarians.
The Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz have decided to form a committee to choose caretakers for supervising fresh parliamentary polls later this year. The hard-earned consensus was achieved after several rounds of talks over the past three days.
At the heart of the back-to-back meetings is the 20th constitutional amendment, aimed at validating all the by-elections which took place between April 2010 and July 2011, when the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was not fully complete as per the requirement under the 18th Amendment.
The 18th constitutional amendment made it binding for the government to appoint a retired high court judge from each of the four provinces as ECP members – a condition that was met only in July 2011, casting doubt on the 28 MPs elected during this period.
Officials in the ruling and opposition parties told The Express Tribune they had cleared all the hurdles in the passage of the amendment and the bill might come to the Parliament this week.
“It is a done deal now… all seem to have got their wish. It is a win-win situation for everybody. We can now expect an announcement shortly,” said a top PPP leader who is privy to the talks.
According to officials in PML-N, the opposition party will support the amendment, which will also now carry a clause envisaging that there should be ‘consensus’ and not mere ‘consultation’ in establishing a caretaker setup for holding fresh elections.
The committee both sides agreed to form will, according to the plan, start deliberations on finalising the caretaker government immediately after elections for half of the Senate seats scheduled for March 2.
Insiders said the government had accepted an opposition demand of choosing a caretaker cabinet, but that President Asif Zardari would be empowered to select the interim prime minister out of three mutually-agreed names forwarded to him.
A provision in the 18th constitutional amendment gave the president power to choose the caretaker government with the consultation of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. Talks on Tuesday had already covered some significant ground when the government agreed to an opposition demand and promised it would not push to seek extensions for the incumbent Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (Retd) Hamid Ali Mirza, when his term expires next month.
Leader of the Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters that there was no more deadlock in the talks but added it was premature to claim a final breakthrough.
He said his party suggested that the procedure of formation of a caretaker government should also be extended to the provinces. However, he said that a final understanding would be reached in the meeting on Thursday (today). “It is going to be a make or break round on Thursday,” said Nisar. The government’s top negotiator, Religious Affairs Minister Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, however, said all the hurdles were removed and the amendment would be passed soon.
Sources said that Nisar called party leader Nawaz Sharif, who is hunting in the Cholistan desert with friends, about the developments on Wednesday night. Sharif reportedly told his senior party leaders on the phone that, if the PPP backtracked on its commitments on Thursday, negotiations should be stopped.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 9th, 2012.
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PPP will not agree to election reforms.It is not in their interest.