The back bencher: Assembly sans co-pilot during prolonged session

Treasury and opposition in talks for withdrawal of writ petition

PESHAWAR:

The prolonged ongoing session of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly was adjourned by Speaker Asad Qaiser till February 6 last Tuesday.

If the speaker does not call for a new session in light of the upcoming senate polls in March, the current session will become one of the longest in the history of the provincial legislature, spanning over five months.



The session started on October 23, 2014 after a four month break. Having been led into the New Year, the total tally of sittings so far stands at 23 days. The cardinal reason for this is perhaps the provincial government’s failure to appoint a new deputy speaker.

‘The chair’

The saga began with the resignation of Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi on October 15, following his induction in the provincial cabinet as Minister for Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Human Rights. Since then the chair has remained vacant, amid hearsay of wrangling between several Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders over the said position.

The whistle was first blown by opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman aided by Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) representatives during the first proceedings of the current session. Rehman said the speaker was bound to conduct elections for the new deputy speaker, to which Qaiser responded with assurances. As the session lingered on, opposition lawmakers also lost enthusiasm to press the treasury further as the government continues to drag its feet on the subject.

So far there are said to be three candidates running for the position from within the ruling party – adviser to chief minister on law Arif Yousaf, Mehmood Jan and female lawmaker Dina Naz. The party, however, remains undecided. Buying time is perhaps the only hope at the moment as prorogation without election will be a violation of the rules of procedure.

Rules of the game

Section 9 of the Assembly Rules of Procedure notes that if there is a vacancy in the speaker’s office, the house shall elect a replacement from among its members on a date fixed by the governor. It further states that if the vacancy occurs during a session, the poll shall be conducted during the same and if one occurs at a time when the assembly is not in session, the poll shall be conducted in the next immediate session.

Meanwhile, Section 10 elaborates on the procedure saying the election of deputy speaker shall be the same, mutatis mutandis, of the election of speaker, except that the speaker will preside over the former.

Disbursement of funds

Incidentally, treasury and opposition lawmakers both have been in talks to pencil a mechanism for the distribution of development funds. Some of the opposition lawmakers had challenged what they call an inequitable distribution of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) and chief minister’s discretionary funds at the Peshawar High Court.

An opposition lawmaker privy to the negotiations told The Express Tribune the government has approached the opposition through the speaker to convince them over the withdrawal of the writ petition, adding two meetings have been held so far but the deal is far from done.

He said the government has agreed to give in to their demands and divide the distribution over a 70/30 ratio. However, the opposition is adamant over sealing a share of 40%. “We hope that an agreement will be in place in a meeting or two,” the lawmaker added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2015.