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| August 27, 2003 | Wednesday | Jumadi-us-Sani 28, 1424 |
Speaker’s move fails to pacify opposition
ISLAMABAD, Aug 26: A belated move by the speaker on Tuesday to delete objectionable remarks made in two previous sittings of the National Assembly failed to pacify opposition parties, which walked out after a noisy protest.
More than an hour’s desk-thumping and slogan-chanting against President Pervez Musharraf and the LFO by opposition members drowned out most of the proceedings carried on by the ruling coalition on the third sitting and the first private members’ day of the current session of the lower house.
While speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain adjourned the house until 9.30am on Friday, the ARD and the MMA alliances threatened to step up their nine-month-old protest against the LFO.
The opposition parties stormed out of the house towards the fag-end of the day’s proceedings, complaining the speaker had failed to satisfy a delegation of opposition women members who met him in his chamber to complain about what they called an objectionable remark made to them on Monday by a member of the pro-government PPP-Patriots group, Tanvir Hussain Syed.
The complaint followed an incident last Friday when some members from two sides came almost to blows over an exchange of alleged insults by People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) member Nahid Khan, and PPP-Patriots parliamentary affairs Minister of State Mohammad Raza Hayat Hiraj.
The opposition has filed two privilege motions and Mr Hiraj one on the issue, none of which has been taken up yet.
After an exchange of hot words with ARD parliamentary leader Javed Hashmi, the speaker ordered the expunction of what he called “unparliamentary language” used by any member or minister in the house on Monday or previously.
After Mr Hashmi said something to him amid opposition slogan- chanting, the speaker retorted: “This is also a matter of shame for you. This is not Mochi Gate (of Lahore).”
Referring to women member’s complaint about objectionable remarks, he said: “I expunge them and direct that in future no member should use any unparliamentary words inside the house.”
He said sanctity of the house would be safeguarded and it would “not be made a jalsagah” (public meeting ground).
But the opposition members walked out of the house chanting “Go Musharraf go” and “No LFO no”. “Give another push to traitors of the Constitution”, “give another push to falling walls”, “long live democracy” and “down with dictatorship” were other slogans shouted by them.
Later, Mr Hashmi told a joint news conference with other opposition leaders outside the house that the opposition had walked out because mere expunction of the remarks was not enough and reiterated the opposition demand for an apology by Mr Hiraj, who was also accused of trying to attack Ms Nahid Khan.
He said the opposition would come out with a new strategy on Friday and that its future protests inside and outside the house would be more severe. “We will give a new shape to our protest in the coming tomorrow,” MMA spokesman Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said.
PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf said the speaker sat like a “statue of clay” when ruling coalition members used abusive language against women members to provoke the opposition.
While the opposition leaders addressed the news conference at the parliament cafeteria, which has become a sort of a parallel assembly for them, speaker Amir Hussain gave his account of his meeting with opposition women members in his chamber before the walkout.
He said the women had complained about allegedly objectionable remarks made by Mr Tanvir Syed and he had promised to expunge the words if the matter was raised inside the house.
He said the women had said PPP member Fauzia Wahab would raise the issue inside the house but regretted that the opposition walked out when he recognized her. So he expunged the objectionable remarks on his own initiative.
Pakistan Muslim League-Q chief whip and Labour and Manpower Minister Abdul Sattar Laleka praised what he called the speaker’s restraint and added that “our heads hang in shame” for alleged disrespect shown to the chair by the opposition.
PPP-Patriots parliamentary leader Sher Afgan Niazi, who denies an opposition charge of making an obscene gesture to women on Friday, accused the opposition parties of making the National Assembly hostage to their protests for the past nine months.
He proposed formation of a special committee to inquire into Friday’s incident and said he should be ousted from the house if was found guilty of the charge. Muttahida Qaumi Movement member Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi lashed out at the attitude of the Jamaat-i-Islami, accusing the party members of a tendency of “making a hole in the plate in which they eat”.
At the joint news conference, MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman said government’s apathy to the opposition protest showed it was not sincere in running the country nor gave any importance to democracy.
He accused President Musharraf of wanting to become a “second (General) Yahya Khan”, who he said had also sought to impose his will on the people through a Legal Framework Order but ended up with the secession of former East Pakistan in December 1971.
MMA parliamentary party leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed, whose alliance rejoined the combined opposition last week after parting company for some time because of a rift over its separate talks with the government, said the government had been told to come up with some package of constitutional amendments to resolve the LFO issue by Aug 28.
He said though the MMA had offered to give one more year for the president to retain the office of army chief of staff, the alliance wanted to end the military’s role in the country’s political power for ever.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the MMA was not giving a cutoff date for a settlement but could not go along with alleged delaying tactics of the government for long.
Earlier, the National Assembly faced its first lack of quorum at the start of a sitting.
The lack of quorum was pointed out by PML-N member Khwaja Mohammad Asif and two other opposition members as the speaker started the proceedings after the recitation from the holy Quran when the rest of the opposition members and many ruling coalition members were absent.
The speaker adjourned the sitting for 15 minutes after a count showed only 58 members in the 342-seat house, which must have a quorum of one-fourth of its strength — 86 members.
The proceedings started when a second count, made after Khwaja Asif again complained of a lack of quorum, showed 95 mainly ruling coalition members present. About as many opposition members also soon came into the hall to start their desk-thumping and slogan-chanting.
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