SINCE the opposition parties have not yet decided whom to nominate to lead them in the National Assembly, the first regular session of the new NA met here on Wednesday with the slot of the leader of the opposition still lying vacant.

As a result, the speaker could not allot separate benches to the opposition and the treasury and the members continued to sit in alphabetical order. There appears to be some kind of a confusion in the battered and bruised opposition on the issue of choosing their joint parliamentary leader. The MMA has already announced that it would back Maulana Fazlur Rehman for the office. The religio-political alliance argues that since the Maulana had contested for the leader of the house slot against Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, he should be the logical choice of the entire opposition for the office of the leader of the opposition.

So far, no other major opposition party, PPP or the PML-N, has publicly disagreed with the MMA’s choice, nevertheless by not endorsing the Maulana’s candidature as yet, the two parties seem to be taking their own time to reach a decision on the matter.

Looking at the way the PML-N has been functioning since the elections, it is possible that it may finally decide to support the MMA choice. But the PPP seems to be in some kind of serious dilemma. On the one hand, it perhaps does not want to be seen to be playing the second fiddle to the MMA and, on the other, it also knows that it does not have the numbers to stake a successful claim on the slot. Perhaps the PML-N holds the balance in this contest and may be Benazir Bhutto has not yet been able to persuade Nawaz Sharif to extend his support to her party in the National Assembly in this matter.

But time is running out fast. The question needs to be decided at the earliest because without an agreed leader of the opposition in the house, it would become increasingly difficult for the opposition parties to operate in unison and play their due role in the legislative process.

The first regular session of the new National Assembly scheduled to meet at 3pm on Wednesday opened at least about 90 minutes late. And as usual, a good part of its three-hour-long sitting was wasted on irrelevant points of order. This prompted Mino Bhandara, a minority member belonging to the ruling party, to warn deputy speaker Sardar Yakoob, who was in the chair, that unless he enforced discipline and ran the house strictly in accordance with the rules of business, the whole house would come to grief and end up doing nothing like the previous ones. But then within minutes of issuing this warning he himself was seen violating the rules as he started indulging in crosstalk with the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, Mr Reza Hiraj, instead of communicating his opinions through the speaker.

According to the NA grapevine, the prime minister has been advised by the security agencies to be more careful while visiting the NA. The car parking lot of the NA has been secured rather more tightly in this connection and the PM was reportedly allowed to enter the building only after the entire parking lot had been cleared by security agencies.

On Wednesday, the prime minister set a welcome parliamentary tradition by participating personally in the question hour session. He himself answered those questions which pertained to the establishment division which is under the purview of PM’s portfolios.

He answered at least about two questions. While answering a question from PPP’s Naveed Qamar as to how many persons from the armed forces had been inducted in the civil jobs, the prime minister said everything was being done in accordance with the rules in this regard, and that since people belonging to the armed forces were also Pakistanis, he saw no reason for anybody to grudge their appointment in civil services.

If this is so, then why do people question the induction of military personnel into civil services? According to some, it is some kind of a backlash that has set in, as the military’s accumulation of lavish perks, and its growing encroachment on civilian institutions and the economy, cause many Pakistanis to ask whether uniformed leaders — like the ‘corrupt’ politicians they replaced — are confusing the national interest with their own.

The military owns the best farmland and several of the largest industrial conglomerates. Retired or active-duty military officers run the ports, postal service, electric utilities, sports federations, telecommunications authority, culture ministry, mineral development agency, anti-drug police, railroads, civil aviation authority, national shipping company and Pakistan’s biggest steel mill. They hold top administrative posts at the best universities. Many ambassadors are retired military officers.

According to a western columnist, Pakistani officers also inhabit a kind of parallel universe that insulates them from the hardships endured by other Pakistanis. Many live with their families in manicured, colonial-era “cantonments” with good schools, well-maintained roads and reliable power and water supplies.

“Under an arcane point-based system that dates back to the British Raj, the military also rewards its senior officers by allowing them to purchase agricultural and urban land from the army’s vast inventory of real estate at prices far below market value. A number of these properties are grouped into ‘defence societies’ in tiny suburbs of Karachi and other major cities. The societies are administered by the Defence Housing Authority, which ensures the provision of municipal services. Officers who acquire such land often develop it as rental property or sell it for hefty profits.”

The Senate, the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament, represents its federal units, and consists of 100 members.

Twenty-two members each are elected from the four provinces by their assemblies in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote. (Each provincial assembly elects 14 members against general seats, four members against seats reserved for women, and four members against seats reserved for technocrats, professionals and ulema.)

Eight senators represent the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) and are elected by the 12 National Assembly members returned to the lower chamber from Fata. No Fata seat is reserved for women or professionals.

The Islamabad federal capital territory elects four senators, including one woman and one technocrat, through the National Assembly, with all its 342 members casting one vote each. Fata and the federal capital are thus given heavy weightage in both houses of parliament.

While election to the lower house is direct and is based on the first-past-the-post system, which means ‘winner takes all’ in disregard of the voting strength of the loser, the indirect proportional mode of Senate elections is meant to ensure that the house of federating units is truly reflective of the party position in the provincial assemblies and the voters’ mandate in the four provinces. However, like the National Assembly, the provincial assemblies themselves are elected on the basis of the first-past-the-post system.

The single transferable vote allocated to each MPA ensures that no vote is wasted. The total number of MPAs is divided by the number of seats in a particular category. For instance, in the February 24 polls the Sindh Assembly’s strength of 168 was divided by 14 for election to the general seats and by four each for election to the seats reserved for technocrats and women. Division of 168 by 14 yielded the figure of 12 but the quotient was later reduced to 11.4 because of the rejection of one ballot. Every MPA could list 14 candidates in order of preference for general seats. When a candidate polled 11.14 votes by means of first preference, his first preferences were not counted and the vote was transferred to the candidate given second preference on the ballot. When the second candidate obtained the requisite number of votes, his first and second preferences were transferred to the candidate appearing at serial number 3 in the order of preference. The preferences in each MPA’s vote were thus transferred till 14 general seats were filled. The same procedure was adopted for election of four women senators and four technocrats from Sindh.

The Senate, under the Constitution, is a standing house not subject to dissolution. Every senator normally has a term of six years. But because of the disruption of the constitutional and electoral process and dissolution of the Senate by the military regime in October 1999, only 50 of the senators elected this week shall complete their six-year terms. Half of the senators shall retire in February 2006 when mid-term elections will be held to fill the 50 vacancies. The full six-year term senators will be chosen by draw of lots. The chairman and deputy chairman of the upper house will be elected by the newly-elected senators from amongst them.