Mock Senate session: Achakzai charm offensive fails to break logjam

Reconciliation efforts fail as opposition members stand steadfast for their demands.

ISLAMABAD:

As the stalemate between the opposition and the government continues in Senate, one of the government allies in Balochistan called on opposition senators and requested them to end the boycott.

Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Thursday met the upper house leader of the opposition Aitzaz Ahsan and Senators Raza Rabbani and Kamil Ali Agha to ask them to call off their protest.

The meeting remained inconclusive as the opposition leaders refused to return to the House until Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar withdrew figures of the drone victims which the opposition had termed ‘misleading’.

On Thursday, the opposition parties’ senators held the Senate’s mock public session in the parliament lawn for the second consecutive day with fierce speeches against the government.

About 50 senators took part in the mock session led by Aitzaz Ahsan but the FATA and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) senators preferred to stay at the government side.

The members passed a resolution against the interior minister for submitting what they termed wrong statistics on deaths in US drone attacks, and demanded that the government provide details to the upper house about the talks with Taliban.

Speaking on the occasion, Senator Raza Rabbani alleged that by giving incorrect figures about drone killings, the interior minister had strengthened the US position.

“The government is following a dual policy with regard to the United States. While it issues superficial statements against the US after drone strikes, it has in reality bowed before it,” Rabbani said.

He further asked: Chaudhry Nisar said the talks were about to start while the militants claimed there had been no contacts. “Now whom should we believe,” he queried.

He said the prime minister’s promise to review Shakil Afridi’s case, his lenient stance on drone attacks and IMF policies manifested that the government had bowed before the superpower.

Rabbani also lambasted the government on release of former President Pervez Musharraf. He alleged that Musharraf had been released at the behest of the US as the former dictator was involved in the killing of Akbar Bugti, Benazir Bhutto, and imposition of emergency and detention of judges.

“Why the government is reluctant to properly initiate a treason trial against him under article 6 for abrogation  of the Constitution?” Rabbani asked.

Through a resolution, he also said that the government should inform the nation, the parliament and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government about steps taken by it to initiate talks with Taliban, adding secret rendezvous would be harmful for the security interests of the country.

“The environment shows that the Taliban are not ready for talks and in such a situation the government must find it out whether they [Taliban] are ready for talks or not, besides making its position clear on the demands put forward by them,” he said.

Rabbani said if the Taliban were ready for talks, the names included in the government’s team for talks must be shared with the lawmakers, besides getting them endorsed from the K-P assembly.

The mock session of opposition senators will be held again at the same venue at 10:30am on Friday.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2013.