ISLAMABAD, June 17: A row erupted in the Senate on Tuesday over President Pervez Musharraf’s four-nation visit hours after the journey began, with the ruling coalition assuring him of full confidence and the opposition questioning his right to speak for Pakistan.
After the opposition parties walked out of the 100-seat upper house and said they would reject agreements the president might sign with Britain, the United States, France and Germany, those in the ruling coalition passed a resolution saying the whole nation was behind him.
Leaders of the combined opposition, including the MMA, the PPP, the PML-N and their other regional allies, said Gen Musharraf’s visit must be treated as that of an individual because they regarded his military presidency as illegitimate.
But an unscheduled resolution moved by a PML-Q senator from Balochistan, Mohammad Sarwar Khan Kakar, and passed unanimously by only the ruling coalition senators who were present in the house voiced their “full confidence” in the president for undertaking what it called an historic visit.
It also assured the president that “the whole nation is with him and prays for the success of the great objectives for which he is working day and night”.
The move, which was not on the original agenda, was similar to the one adopted on the last day of the National Assembly’s budget session on Saturday after the opposition parties had walked out as part of their prolonged protest against the Legal Framework Order.
But for Tuesday’s walkout from the Senate, which was later prorogued by a presidential order, the opposition parties cited a range of issues, including the president’s visit, National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain’s ruling to uphold the LFO and rejection of the upper house recommendations on the budget by the National Assembly.
The high point of the opposition protest came when an outspoken Balochistan National Party (Mengal) Senator, Sanaullah Baloch, tore some budget papers and threw them on the floor before announcing the opposition walkout.
“This is a remarkable game,” remarked an embarrassed Deputy Chairman Khalilur Rehman, who presided over the session in the absence of Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro and appeared to be lenient in allowing opposition senators to have their say in what appeared to be a move to delay the walkout by engaging them in speeches.
Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan and his party’s only other senator, Mohammad Ilyas Bilour, remained inside the house for a while but walked out later to protest against the National Assembly speaker’s ruling.
“Whatever agreements he (the president) will sign during the trip will be illegitimate,” said Mr Baloch, who also questioned the legality of government’s agreement with China to construct Gwadar port in his home province.
Asked if the opposition would ask foreign leaders not sign any agreements with President Musharraf, MMA senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed, who is also vice-president of Jamaat-i-Islami, said the opposition’s reservations about Gen Musharraf for simultaneously holding the presidency and the office of the chief of army staff was “a message to the whole world” that he was undertaking the present visit “in the capacity of an individual”.
Inside and outside the Senate, the opposition members blasted the National Assembly speaker’s ruling that the LFO was part of the Constitution and criticized the treasury benches for rejecting the Senate recommendations on the budget.
“By issuing his ruling after waiting for six months, the speaker has proved his partiality and his desire to strengthen his job,” MMA leader Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani said of what he called “the most shameful decision”.
He told a news conference that the ruling was all the more regrettable because the speaker had presided a joint government-opposition parliamentary committee that discussed the controversy over the LFO for about a month and submitted recommendations to Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali.
While the prime minister failed to convene a promised meeting of heads of parliamentary parties on the issue, it appeared “pressure was put on the speaker to give the ruling before (President Musharraf’s) visit to the United States,” he said.
PPP’s parliamentary party leader in the Senate, Raza Rabbani, called the ruling one of the “the blackest chapters” in not only Pakistan’s but world’s parliamentary history and said the action amount to an insult of both houses of parliament.
Maulana Noorani told a questioner that the opposition parties were still discussing their move to bring a no-confidence motion against the assembly speaker.
“That decision will be implemented,” he said without giving a timeframe.
But he seemed to be ruling out any immediate street protest over the LFO because of the hot weather.
“It is still hot,” he said, and added: “The opposition is keeping an eye on the country’s barometer. It is not as weak as the government is thinking about it.” said.
