Move to oust speaker fails: Opposition boycotts vote
By Raja Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Friday survived a second move to oust him in 16 months after opposition parties criticized his attitude but boycotted a ballot to protest against the deputy speaker's decision to cut short a debate on their no-confidence resolution.
The boycott and a noisy protest in the lower house came after Deputy Speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub allowed only three opposition speeches, rejecting a demand that all the 107 sponsors of the resolution should be allowed to speak, before asking Chaudhry Amir Hussain to reply to charges ranging from being the most-speaking speaker, partial against the opposition, intolerant and taking dictation from what one member called 'supra-parliamentary forces'.
Mr Yaqub said at the outset of the special sitting held to consider the opposition move that he would allow only two hours for the debate and allocate half an hour each to one mover of the no-trust resolution and the assembly speaker and allot the remainder of the time to as many more members as could be accommodated.
But the opposition parties insisted that all 107 signatories of the resolution seeking the removal of the speaker were also its movers and were entitled under the rules of procedures to speak for at least half an hour each.
Despite the opposition's claim of dissent within the ruling coalition, there appeared no chance of the resolution being adopted because of the government's majority of 192 members in the 342-seat house.
But parliamentary sources said the government did not want a prolonged debate - the opposition had envisaged it to continue it until mid-night - because the opposition members had planned to direct their guns more at President Pervez Musharraf rather than the speaker.
Some active members of the ruling coalition were seen moving their colleagues out of the house, probably to a committee room where a coalition meeting had been called at the same time, but was not held.
"Go Musharraf go", "go speaker go", the opposition members chanted as they gathered in front of the speaker's dais after Mr Yaqub closed speeches from the opposition side and Chaudhry Amir Hussain began a speech in his defence that was hardly audible in the galleries because of the noise.
Some opposition members tore up ballot papers or threw them in the air after announcing the boycott of the vote, ignoring repeated calls by the deputy speaker to the resolution supporters to cast their vote.
"The number of votes cast in favour of the resolution is nil as against the required 172 votes (in the 342-seat house), so the resolution is not passed," he said before adjourning the house until 11am on Monday amid opposition threats that he too could face a similar no-confidence move.
The opposition move was sparked by the alleged partiality shown by the speaker on Oct 14 by allowing the government to bulldoze through the house a bill to allow President Musharraf to remain army chief as well even beyond the constitutional deadline of Dec 31. The bill is yet to go to the Senate.
Chaudhry Amir Hussain had survived a similar opposition no-confidence resolution on June 28 last year after he had ruled that the Legal Framework Order (LFO) had become part of the constitution.
While members of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) and their smaller allies were present in the house in strength, absence of most of the ruling coalition members prompted opposition allegations that the government had stopped them from attending the session lest some of them come out to oppose the speaker.
But Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain denied this as well as other charges, most of which came from the main opposition speaker Aitzaz Ahsan, who opened the debate that he called 'a lamentation about a critical office' (of the speaker) and of a 'voyage to a downfall'.
The speaker was particularly bitter about Mr Ahsan - who tinged his incisive attacks with quotes from Punjabi folklore and sufi poetry - and said he had committed no wrong, had not been partial, given more time to the opposition to speak, and would not complain even about what he called a failed no-confidence move.
He said if he had been intolerant, half of the opposition members would have lost their seats for their behaviour in the house, particularly during their desk-thumping protest for more than a year against the LFO.
"No speaker in Pakistan's history showed as much patience as I did," he said. The immediate cause of the no-confidence motion, as cited by Mr Ahsan and two other opposition speakers - Hafiz Hussain Ahmed of the MMA and PML-N's Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan - was Chaudhry Amir Hussain's decision to stop the debate on the 'President to Hold Another Office Bill' after allegedly agreeing to allow more opposition members to speak.
They accused the speaker of cutting the debate short in violation of his promise on a directive from unspecified sources even after giving floor to PML-N's Tehmina Daultana, who could not make her speech.
The speaker denied the charge, which also became a point of contention between Law Minister Wasi Zafar and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, who said he would resign his seat if the record of a business advisory committee meeting proved him wrong about the speaker's commitment to allow a longer debate on that bill. "See how many of them have been stopped from coming to the house," Mr Aitzaz Ahsan said about the absence most members of the PML and its allies.
