ISLAMABAD, May 18: Opposition parties in the Senate paid dearly on Friday for their noisy protests against the May 12 killings in Karachi when the upper house was sent to its longest recess, or a three-week sleep they cannot break.
Amid an uproar of slogan-chanting for the fourth day, Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro adjourned the house until 5pm on June 9 after about five minutes’ sitting in a move that came as a surprise to the opposition and saw some eyebrows raised even in the ruling party.
Never before the present Senate was adjourned by the chairman --- rather than prorogued by the president --- for such a long recess during more than four years of its life and no available parliamentarian could recall when a previous Senate was ever adjourned for so long.
Opposition parties had expected the government to prorogue the house because of their protests over the Karachi events for which they blame the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for the killings of mostly their supporters among a toll of more than 40 and the government of encouraging the massacre to foil a planned public reception for suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
The prorogation would have kept the door open for the opposition to file a requisition, or request, signed by 25 senators for a fresh session of the 100-seat house to debate the Karachi situation, as the opposition parties in the National Assembly are planning to do after the lower house session was prorogued by a presidential order on Tuesday after similar noisy protests.
SHUT UP ORDER OR CEASEFIRE: But the trick in the present move, reflecting some ruling coalition desperation with the opposition protests, is that the Senate session, which started on May 9, would be considered on even for the adjournment period until June 9 during which no requisition can be entertained under the rules of procedure, which have set no maximum period for which the chairman can adjourn the house.
The dubious recess will in effect be shut-up or ceasefire order for the opposition in the Senate and could raise questions about making choices by Chairman Soomro between parliamentary conventions and ruling party instructions.
While opposition senators marched out of the chamber and then the parliament house chanting slogans such as “zalimo jawab dau, khoon ka hisab dau” (oppressors answer, give account of blood) and “lathi-goli ki sarkar nahein challegi, nahein challegi” (rule of stick and bullet will not work), Senator S.M. Zafar of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), a former law minister, appeared taken aback by Chairman Soomro’s announcement of the three-week adjournment.
“This can’t be done, this is a wrong decision,” he told Dawn when asked about his reaction but later, after checking the rules at the office of Senate secretary Raja Mohammad Amin, conceded that nothing constricted the chairman in deciding the period of an adjournment.
PML senator Nisar A. Memon, a former information and broadcasting minister, too appeared perplexed by the chairman’s move despite the permitting rules. “We have a lot of complications, let us have one more,” he remarked as he examined the rules with Mr Zafar.
Secretary Amin told Dawn that similar long adjournments had been made in both the Senate and the National Assembly in the past but nobody could recall when.
Opposition senators said there was no convention of such adjournments in Pakistan’s parliamentary history.
“RUBBING SALT, NO BALM”: Senator Safdar Abbasi of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, taking floor on a point of order at the start of the sitting, accused the government of being callous to the people of Karachi while the death toll from firing by “a government party” and paramilitary rangers had mounted to 60 and said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had rubbed salt rather than put a balm on the wounds during a visit to Karachi earlier this week.
As opposition benches burst into slogan-shouting, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamil Ali Agha was heard suggesting a debate instead, just before the chairman announced the adjournment.
