Balochistan’s constitutional crisis: Raisani forges ahead despite ‘cancelled’ session

Key meeting convenes today despite acting governor’s intervention.

ISLAMABAD:

The Balochistan governor has flown abroad at a critical juncture, and the province’s lingering constitutional showdown has reached a climatic stage.

With a critical assembly session scheduled for today (Tuesday) - which could see beleaguered Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani look for a vote of confidence from the house, the man who took over in the wake of the governor’s departure, Balochistan Assembly Speaker Muhammad Aslam Bhootani, brazenly withdrew an earlier notification summoning the gathering.

Instead, he directed the provincial law ministry to get clearance for the session from the Supreme Court.

The chief minister, however, seems determined in the wake of a Supreme Court October 12 interim order which stated that the provincial government had lost its authority.

Raisani has decided to hold the session as per schedule, according to an official source. The chief minister has directed his cabinet members to be ready to submit a written request by 20 members of the house (the other legal way for a session to be summoned) to the acting speaker asking him to convene the assembly session then and there. A no-trust motion by the assembly members could also be moved against the speaker to get rid of him, an official of the chief minister’s team said.

Latest reports held that the session had been summoned by the acting speaker for 4 pm.

Notification withdrawn

“There was no record available with the assembly secretariat to establish that the governor had actually summoned the session,”’ said an official privy to the developments.  “The acting governor could raise this legal objection on November 13 and the issue could be taken to the court to determine whether Nawab Magsi had summoned the session or not.”

Governor Zulfikar Ali Magsi, on the advice of Raisani, had reportedly summoned the assembly session last week.

The decision to cancel the session was the first directive of Bhootani as acting governor, another senior official of the governor’s office said.  He added that the acting governor had not ‘cancelled’ the session, but had in fact withdrawn “an earlier order summoning the assembly session issued by Governor Magsi last week”. Bhootani directed the Law Department to seek a clarification from the Supreme Court Registrar in this regard, according to officials.

The month-long tussle between the speaker and the chief minister surfaced earlier this month when Bhootani had also opposed a government move to convene an assembly session. He justified this by saying that after the apex court’s interim order, the chief minister had lost his constitutional authority as the chief executive of the province.

Crisis deepens

“With the acting governor’s aggressive step on Monday, the deepening political and constitutional crisis in the province has been further intensified,” said a senior official.

A close aide of the chief minister said “It was shocking for Raisani, who was contemplating seeking a fresh vote of confidence from the assembly on the first day of its proceedings.”

The chief minister and his close associates went into an emergency session of the cabinet soon after the acting governor’s decision to discuss the crisis. Balochistan Advocate General Amanullah Kanrani, who attended the meeting, told the chief minister that the acting governor overstepped his constitutional powers. The chief minister said that he would hold the provincial cabinet meeting at 1 pm on November 13 and after that he would attend the assembly session.

Raisani-Magsi conflict

According to a highly-placed source, Governor Magsi, who has also clashed with Chief Minister Raisani over the last two years, decided to go abroad on the pretext of medical treatment when his conflict became public after Bhootani’s opposition to holding the session.

Raisani’s supporters in the provincial cabinet and in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) accused the governor of instigating an anti-Raisani campaign at the behest of the establishment. At the forefront of his defenders was his brother, Lashkari Raisani, who has previously accused Magsi of hatching conspiracies against the Raisani government. Lashkari said that PPP Balochistan President Sadiq Umrani along with the governor, the speaker, and a few provincial ministers, was being used by the establishment to over throw his brother’s government.

The governor, meanwhile, issued a statement before leaving the country categorically denying any accusations of conspiring against Raisani’s administration. Magsi said, “Heaven will not fall because of three or four days of my absence from the country.”

(Read: Courting trouble)

WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY OUR CORRESPONDENT IN QUETTA

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2012.