ISLAMABAD: The opposition on Thursday blocked the government’s move to present a resolution in the National Assembly authorising the speaker to constitute a parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, saying it would not become part of it without prior consultations and at a time when opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif and others were still in jail.

Amid a noisy protest by opposition members, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan hurriedly read out the complete text of the resolution, but Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri did not put it to vote and directed the government to engage opposition parties and bring it again with consensus.

In another development, taking advantage of the absence of a majority of opposition members, who had staged a walkout after pointing out lack of quorum, the government through introduction of a supplementary agenda managed to get extension in the life of six ordinances which were about to lapse within the next two weeks and also laid two ordinances, including the controversial Tax Laws (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, before the house.

As soon as the parliamentary affairs minister stood up to move the resolutions seeking extension of the ordinances, Aliya Kamran of JUI-F pointed out lack of quorum to protest Mr Suri’s act of giving the floor to the minister after deferring the remaining items on the agenda that also included one of her bills.

Suri asks treasury to move resolution in consensus with opposition

The deputy speaker suspended the proceedings for more than 30 minutes to allow the treasury members to complete the quorum for which the presence of 86 members (one-fourth of the 342-member house) was required as the government was desperate to get extension for the ordinances which included the Special Technology Zones Authority Ordinance, 2020, which was to expire at midnight.

Taking advantage of the situation, the government also sought extension in the life of five other ordinances, including the Pakistan Telecommunica­tions (Re-Organisation) (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, and the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, which were to lapse in the second week of April.

Besides this, the minister also laid the recently-promulgated Tax Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, and the National Accountability (Amend­ment) Ordinance, 2021, before the house.

Electoral reforms committee

As soon as the minister read out the resolution for the formation of the parliamentary committee on electoral reforms, the opposition members protested over it for presenting the resolution unilaterally.

“You cannot constitute a committee without the consent of the opposition even if you are doing it after receiving an order from someone,” said Shazia Marri of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in an apparent reference to last month’s letter written by Prime Minister Imran Khan to Speaker Asad Qaiser asking him to form the committee.

The PPP lawmaker was of the view that instead of making new rules and laws, there was a need to allow the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to function independently.

She said that on one hand the government was asking the chief election commissioner and members of the ECP to resign simply because they had not been working as per its wishes and on the other hand it was talking about electoral reforms.

“The problem does not lie in the laws and rules. It is the intention that matters. The problem arises when election staff goes missing. The problem starts when magic ink becomes an issue,” she went on to say while referring to the recent incident of the 20 missing presiding officers during by-elections in Daska, Punjab. “We will not accept an eyewash committee. We will not accept eyewash statements and we will not accept eyewash planning,” she declared.

Khurram Dastagir of the PML-N also opposed the formation of the committee, saying the opposition had not been consulted and asked how could there be consultations when Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N’s parliamentary leader Khawaja Asif and PPP’s Syed Khurshid Shah were in jails on “false allegations”.

Communications Minister Murad Saeed alleged that those who were used to getting power through backdoors and receiving money for making political alliances like the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad of the 1990s would never want to see transparency in the election system. He alleged that use of money in the recent Senate elections had also exposed the opposition’s intentions.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2021