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ISLAMABAD: Apparently dazed by dramatic developments outside that it feigned to ignore, the National Assembly made a quick work of three government bills on Wednesday, while Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani took time from a hectic schedule to pacify an estranged lawmaker of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Everybody expected the government to explain Tuesday’s resignation of Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani forced by a perceived intrigue that had rocked the house last week and a word, and possible comments by members, about the appointment of their colleague and former information minister Sherry Rehman as his successor.
But no such thing happened in what was a third day of total silence in the lower house about the so-called memo critical of Pakistan’s military leadership that a Pakistani-American businessman claims to have sent to the then US military chief in May at the behest of Mr Haqqani and which became the cause of the ambassador’s departure without a hint any proof of guilt found by the government.
But apparent whispers of members by members who would often made clusters by moving around their revolving chairs indicated the hottest diplomatic drama in Islamabad for years was actually on their minds even when they were voting, without any question, on three bills and one resolution that called for making maternal health as “a basic human right”.
The scheduled start of a debate on the acute shortage and high prices of fertilisers in the country was also put off until Thursday on the plea that opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, who had promised to open the discussion, was not present.
Even the prime minister refused to take questions from reporters outside the house when he announced his success in persuading PPP member from Quetta Nasir Ali Shah to end his campaign of regular sit-ins outside the parliament house since the last month to protest against alleged government apathy to what he called target-killings of his Hazara Shia tribe by rival militant groups in Balochistan.
Mr Gilani, who had urged the opposition not to overblow the memo issue and wait for an explanation from Mr Haqqani when he last came to the house on Friday, made no comments in the house during the brief period he remained there after escorting Mr Shah, who later said in a speech that he had ended his protest on the prime minister’s assurance to get a briefing from security authorities on Balochistan and take necessary measures to prevent target-killings.
One bill, piloted by PPP chief whip and Religious Affairs Minister Khursheed Ahmed Shah on behalf of Commerce Minister Amin Fahim, who was not present, and already passed by the Senate, amends the Anti-Dumping Duties Ordinance of 2000 to enable the federal government to empower an existing appellant tribunal to hear appeals against the decisions of the National Tariff Commission or appoint a serving or retired judge of the Supreme Court, or one who is qualified for that job, as tribunal head for such hearings.
Another bill, also piloted by Mr Shah on behalf of Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, seeks to exclude the House Building Finance Corporation from the application of the Banks (Nationalisation) Act of 1974.
The third bill passed on the day, and piloted by Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moula Bakhsh Chandio, seeks to amend the Islamabad Consumer Protection Act of 1995 to provide for summary trials by special magistrates of cases of profiteering, hoarding, black-marketing, adulteration and selling of expired food items or charging excess prices.
The resolution on maternal health, sponsored by 14 members of the ruling coalition, says:
“That this house recognises that most instances of maternal mortality and morbidity are preventable, and that preventable maternal mortality and morbidity is a health development and human rights challenge that also requires effective promotion and protection of the human rights of women and girls, in particular their rights to life, to be equal in dignity, to education, to be free to seek, receive and impart information, to enjoy the benefit of scientific progress, to freedom from discrimination, and to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health,, and accordingly resolves that the maternal health may be declared as a basic human right.”
