KARACHI, April 24: The combined opposition is participating in the planned dialogue, scheduled for Friday, with the government on the Legal Framework Order (LFO) ‘with an open mind’ to end the deadlock created by the government’s stance on the issue and to save the country from a dangerous backlash.
This was stated by Mian Raza Rabbani, the PPP Parliamentarians’ Parliamentary Party Leader in Senate, while addressing a news conference here on Thursday.
Responding to a questioner, he clarified that the chief of PPP Parliamentarians, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, had spoken of ‘give and take’ because that was the essence of any dialogue. “The PPP has always shown flexibility in preserving the federation’s interests,” Mr Rabbani emphasized.
He said that the opposition was sincere in its approach that the system should continue and 1973 Constitution rehabilitated. But the government has not yet created a conducive environment, he alleged while referring to the contradictory statements by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and the PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. Mr Rabbani quoted Mr Hussain as saying that the LFO could not be discussed in the assembly because it had become part of the Constitution.
Similarly, Mr Rabbani said, Gen Pervez Musharraf’s statment about the parliament also cast negative effects on the democratic dispensation as it was ‘highly objectionable and unwarranted’.
Despite these provocations, the combined opposition agreed to participate in the talks with an open mind, he said.
Replying to a question on the PPP-P’s relationship with Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Mr Rabbani said that despite divergent views on certain domestic and foreign policy issues, the two sides shared common views on the core issues like LFO, supremacy of parliament, restoration of the Constitution and Gen Musharraf giving up the uniform.
Mr Rabbani, who is also Deputy Secretary General of the PPP, said the opposition believed that the LFO was not part of the Constitution. “We want the government to present the LFO in the House for ratification,” he said adding, “We do not agree with the government’s suggestion that if the opposition is interested in discussing the LFO, it should raise the issue through a private members bill.”
He said that the opposition’s stand was not aimed at seeking power, but to uphold principles of supremacy of the parliament and to curtail President’s discretionary powers.
He rejected the government’s claim that elections had been held under the LFO. Rather, he said, the polls had been held under the General Elections Order 2002 and oath taken under the 1973 Constitution as it existed prior to Oct 12 military intervention.
Mr Rabbani claimed that the supreme court had also held that the question could be raised at an “appropriate forum at an appropriate time”. Mr Rabbani also quoted former law minister’s statment that even the Referendum Order 2002 had to be presented in the assembly.
Referring to joint sitting of the parliament, he cited Article 56(3) of the Constitution making such a sitting mandatory after the commencement of the first session following each general elections. He regretted that despite a lapse of 197 days, such a session could not be held.
The other reason for not recognizing the LFO as part of the Constitution, he said, was that under the LFO, in effect, the requirement of the joint sitting of parliament had been done away with.
The PPP-P leader deplored the government’s media campaign targeted against the opposition and accusing it of wasting tax-payers’ money by staging protest in the parliament. He posed a counter question as to how much of the tax-payers’ money was being spent on the fleet of ministers.
He also expressed his party’s grave concern over the proposed visit by a team of UN inspectors to the Fauji Jordan Fertiliser Plant on the April 29. It appeared, he said, that at the hands of the PML-Q government, the political and economic sovereignty of the country was being surrendered. “In the absence of any concrete evidence or a remotest possibility of the existence of chemical weapons, this inspection is uncalled for and unwarranted,” he declared.
Even more meaningful appeared to be the timing of the inspection — at the heel of the Iraqi invasion — he warned and reminded that it followed only weeks after imposition of sanctions on Kahuta Research Laboratories.
This development, he said, coupled with the propaganda against Pakistan in the western media with regards to terrorism and nuclear question, raised legitimate apprehensions in the minds of Pakistanis.
Mr Rabbani observed that the Foreign Office statement in this regard was apologetic and an eyewash as it failed to answer a number of questions and amounted to a cover up for the total failure of the government’s foreign policy.
He said that while the government used to talk of the parliament’s sovereignty, such critical issues of national security were not being allowed to be raised in Senate or National Assembly.
“The issue (of inspection) will be raised in Senate,” he said.
