ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: Opposition parties blocked the start of a Senate session for more than two hours on Tuesday and then drowned out brief proceedings the government pushed through amid protests over who should chair the upper house in the absence of its chairman and deputy chairman.
“No, No”, “stranger in the chair”, opposition senators chanted throughout the disrupted proceedings after they objected to ruling party Senator Khalid Ranjha presiding over the session while chairman Mohammedmian Soomro became acting president since President Pervez Musharraf left for the United States on Sunday and the deputy chairman’s office is laying vacant since mid-March.
Opposition leader Raza Rabbani said at the start of the protest that the chairman or the deputy chairman must themselves announce in the house a panel of presiding officers to stand in for them rather than somebody else doing it.
The treasury benches, led by leader of the house Wasim Sajjad, contested the argument and said Mr Ranjha and two other ruling coalition senators had been validly nominated by Chairman Soomro to preside over the proceedings in his absence.
Opposition senators shouted “shame, shame” and “no, no” as Mr Ranjha entered the house to take chair and then, after the formal recitation of verses from the holy Quran that marked the start of the session, plunged the house into an uproar of much louder slogans, including one asking the former law minister to “vacate the chair”.
The Senate met after about three months’ recess after its budget session in June and witnessed an unprecedented controversy in the history of Pakistan’s upper house since its creation in the 1970s.
Leaders from opposition parties and the ruling coalition failed to resolve the controversy during a prolonged recess.
While the treasury benches wanted to the issue to be decided by the house after hearing both sides, the opposition said the way out was the election of presiding officer by the house rather than nomination by an absent chairman.
Mr Rabbani, who was the only opposition speaker inside the house, told Mr Ranjha that proceedings under his chairmanship were in violation of Senate rules of procedure.
“The chair is empty as you cannot be recognised (as presiding officer) because your presence in the chair is illegal and in violation of the rules of procedure of the Senate and parliamentary tradition,” he said.
The chair, Mr Sajjad and some other senators from the treasury benches sought to discuss the matter in the house to reach a decision. But Mr Rabbani insisted that Mr Ranjha was not competent to hear these arguments because the matter related to his competence to preside over the house and, addressing the chair, said: “You cannot be a judge in your own cause.”
“I am not a judge, I will only request the leader of opposition (to) let us debate this point,” Mr Ranjha said amid “no, no” chants from opposition benches.
“Why can’t we debate this?” the chair asked, and the opposition response in chorus was: “Vacate the chair.”
Mr Ranjha seemed hesitant to take up the agenda starting with the question in the din of opposition shouting and disagreed with a suggestion from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi to ask the protesters to leave the house for allegedly violating the rules.
However, after about half an hour’s opposition slogan-chanting and desk-thumping, Mr Ranjha agreed with a suggestion from ruling party chief whip Kamil Ali Agha to briefly adjourn the house to allow the two sides to discuss the issue and find a wayout.
But the adjournment, which was prolonged to about one and a half hours from the original half an hour, failed to resolve the issue and Mr Ranjha ordered the start of the question hour as entered the house when only a few members were present.
Soon more members from both sides rushed into the house and the opposition again tried to block the proceedings.
“You are a distinguished member of this house...and of the bar,” Mr Rabbani told Mr Ranjha and asked him: “Don’t tarnish this image.”
The opposition leader said the treasury benches had rejected a way-out proposed by his side and said the opposition would not allow the government to run the house in violation of rules and the constitution. In a barely audible speech amid opposition slogans, Mr Wasim Sajjad said Mr Ranjha had been legally nominated as a presiding officer by the Senate chairman who, according to him, did not lose his powers as chairman on becoming acting president.
“Therefore our submission would be that their arguments may be presented,” he said. “We will present our point of view before the house and let you or the house decide which point of view is correct.”
Several other ruling coalition members also objected to opposition stance, some relating it to what they called as opposition frustration with losses in the recent local bodies’ elections. But the opposition continued protesting and the chair started the question hour, which finished quickly because opposition members did not put their questions though government answers were taken as read and those from the treasury benches 0 - ? did not ask many The only other item taken up was the laying before the Senate of three presidential ordinances before the house was adjourned till 6pm on Thursday.
