ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) for the first time on Wednesday joined a protest walkout in favour of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto initiated by PPP lawmakers.
It was after a pronounced reluctance by most of the MMA members that the six-party religious alliance followed the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the token walkout staged to protest against Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s remarks in Lahore about the former premier.
A ruling coalition delegation sent by Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain soon brought the opposition members back into the chamber to be present during the legislative business, which was marked first by the passage of two government bills.
The opposition blocked the passage of a third bill on the day’s agenda when most of its members left the house quietly, leaving the 342-seat house without the required quorum of 86, or one-fourth of its total strength, forcing the chair to announce an adjournment until 10am on Thursday.
The speaker showed some rare accommodation for the opposition as he invited some PPP members to meet him in his chamber to discuss a planned adjournment motion about President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s statements in favour of the controversial Kalabagh dam project and then allowed PPP member Naheed Khan to speak her mind out against what she called a ‘media trial’ of Ms Bhutto for the past seven years.
She asked the chair to stop ministers from defaming Ms Bhutto and, without naming Sheikh Rashid, protested against his remarks to reporters in which he called a Swiss court trial of her and Asif Ali Zardari “a question of life and death” for the self-exiled former premier.
The speaker ruled out Ms Khan’s point of order after she had aired her anger, but some other PPP members raised the issue again after the chair showed a concession to the so-called ‘forward bloc’ in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) over a privilege question one of its members, Farooq Amjad Meer, had sought to raise about a complaint.
The speaker had initially declined to entertain the privilege question saying the time set for raising such issues, soon after the question hour, had already passed. But, he changed his mind after ‘forward bloc’ leader Riaz Hussain Pirzada and another member stood up to insist that the matter be taken up immediately.
However, the issue was put off until Thursday as suggested by Mr Pirzada. Upon this, PPP chief whip Khurshid Ahmed Shah named the information minister for using what he called derogatory remarks about Ms Bhutto. He and several other party members stood up in protest and announced the walkout.
While PML-N and some MMA members immediately joined the PPP walkout, most MMA members stayed behind. But they all left the chamber after PML-N’s Tehmina Daultana and some other opposition members were seen persuading them to join the protest by apparently reminding them of a decision of opposition alliances to stage protest walkouts together.
The Pakistan Telecommunication (Reorganisation) (Amendment) Bill, which was taken for a general debate on Monday, and the Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan Bill, already passed by the Senate, generated some heat before being passed by the ruling coalition’s majority, which accepted some government-proposed amendments, but rejected some others moved by MMA members.
While the first bill is aimed to facilitate the privatization of the telecom sector, the second gives the needed cover of an act of parliament — in the light of a Supreme Court ruling — to the already existing Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan, set up in 1984, as an autonomous organization under the petroleum and natural resources ministry.
KALABAGH DAM: The adjournment motion on the Kalabagh dam project seeks an immediate debate on the issue, accusing the president of insisting on the project “without consulting all stake-holders”.
“This is a clear example of the military government’s complete disregard to the sufferings of the people of Pakistan. It not only threatens the federation (of Pakistan) but is a clear attempt to sow discord among the provinces at a time when the country needs to focus on the gravest crisis that has hit it since 1971,” the motion said in references to the Oct 8 earthquake and the 1971 secession of former East Pakistan.
