Editorial

At the helm

It is good to see Senate being led by a person of competence backed by all political groups

Editorial March 13, 2015

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar (L) administrating the oath of the office of Senate Chairman to Senator Raza Rabbani. PHOTO: PID

With Senator Raza Rabbani’s uncontested election as Senate chairman on March 12, a PPP man takes control of the 104-seat Upper House of parliament for the third consecutive term. Senator Rabbani’s election was certain following the formation of a strong opposition alliance to back him, days after the voting for 48 out of 52 vacant Senate seats took place. The four seats from Fata still need to be filled. With the ruling PML-N also opting to support Senator Rabbani, no other nomination papers were filed. While the PML-N may have liked to control both parliamentary chambers, the election of an opposition man can be positive in a democratic system where we need discussion and debate in order to evolve a solid working order and develop the consensus needed for this.

While he will face numerous challenges, Senator Rabbani, respected as a constitutional expert and a man who has stayed loyal to the PPP — a party which he joined in 1968 — for over four and a half decades, is a man well-suited to the task. He has tackled issues of federation before, as minister for inter-provincial affairs and in playing an important role in drafting the landmark Eighteenth Amendment Bill of 2010. As he stressed in his brief speech after taking charge as Senate chairman, he will be working for parliamentary sovereignty and strengthening democracy.

While Senator Rabbani’s election was unanimous, there was more dissent over the election for the deputy chairman slot. Maulana Ghafoor Haideri of the JUI-F, elected to the post, is seen as a hardline cleric. How things pan out at the Senate is something that will be closely watched over the coming three years. The fact that most major parties united behind Senator Rabbani is a positive step, and we hope the same spirit of cooperation will be seen over the months ahead. It is what we need in order to strengthen our democratic system and allow all its components to play a part in this. The Senate is, of course, among the most significant of these components. It is good to see it led by a person of competence backed by all political groups.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2015.

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COMMENTS (1)

F Khan | 9 years ago | Reply There should be no credit to the PPP for Rabbani's election. The credit goes to the PMLN and the other small parties for showing the maturity and having him elected. If PPP wanted Rabbani would have been elected chairman in 2009 when Farooq Naek was elected.Farooq was only elected because he was Zardari's legal adviser fighting all his dirty cases (Even then Rabbani was deserving).This has been PPP's tragedy always that they had good people like Rabbani,Ahsan,Taj Haider,Manzoor etc but they always went for the tainted & incompetent ones like Gilani and Raja. PPP is in the soup due to reputation crisis. All the top leaders including No.1 are perceived corrupt to their bone marrows.They need to bring on new faces otherwise they are doomed.

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