National assembly: Peace overtures replaced by siege of premier’s seat

PPP members build a ‘human wall’ around PM to protect him against opposition members.

ISLAMABAD:

The government was caught off guard on Tuesday in the National Assembly.

A day after offering the government talks, the opposition let loose another assault on the government and the prime minister in the budget session of the lower house of Parliament.

Picking up where it left off from the budget speech, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) surrounded the seat of the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and raised heated slogans against the government and the premier.

Fear of a repeat of an altercation heightened when members from the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) made a ‘human wall’ around the prime minister’s seat to protect him. But there was to be no physical exchange this time around.

Interestingly, the prime minister remained unmoved during the protests.

Both the opposition and the prime minister exited the house after the Magrib call to prayers.

The opposition had been creating a ruckus in the National Assembly for many days – but had refrained from doing the same on Monday – given that its senior member, and party general secretary Ahsan Iqbal delivered a long speech on the budget and the political situation in general.

In his speech, Iqbal had hinted that the PML-N was ready to cooperate with the government if the prime minister stepped down, and if elections were announced along with a caretaker government.

The member who was meant to deliver his speech on the budget on Tuesday was Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar.

However, the uproar by the opposition forced Sattar, the first speaker to resume the budget debate, to express his inability to deliver his speech. At this point, National Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, unable to draw in any other volunteers to speak during the opposition’s protest, asked Textile Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin to take the floor.

While speaking on next year’s budget, Shahabuddin did his utmost to paint a rosy picture of the government’s performance while criticising the opposition’s disruption of National Assembly proceeding.

Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Farzana Raja said that instead of giving suggestions for the welfare of people, the opposition had decided to make a mockery out of proceedings, adding that its attitude had proved that it was not concerned about the problems of the masses.

Eventually, Sattar resumed his speech and identified economic issues that had left “98% of the population” out of the economic cycle.

“Economic instability is the biggest threat to democracy and political stability,” he added.

The MQM’s parliamentary party leader went on to claim that an “out-of-the-box” approach had to be implemented to address the current economic crisis, adding that ad-hocism was still very much present in the country. He did also censured the government for neglecting the MQM’s constituencies.

“We have supported you (the government) in every hour of need but there is not a single development scheme or allocation of money for all 17 constituencies of the MQM,” he said.

Commenting on the crisis in Balochistan, he said Balochistan was slowly escaping from Pakistan’s fold and termed efforts made by the government to resolve the crisis as ‘too little, too late’.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2012.