ISLAMABAD: The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) appeared to be trying in the National Assembly on Friday to allay its critics’ fears that a protest campaign launched by it could be part of a conspiracy to derail the democratic process, but there was no taker yet of a leading government ally’s suggestion to form a pro-democracy front to face it.

“With God’s grace, there is no such danger,” Shafqat Mahmood, a senior PTI lawmaker, said while speaking in a general debate on the second budget of the present government shortly after several party members held a weekly sit-in outside the Election Commission to protest against alleged rigging in last year’s general elections.

Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the government-allied Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, raised many eyebrows on Thursday when, in a speech on the budget, he warned parliamentarians of “clouds hovering over democracy” and urged political parties in parliament to form a “pro-democracy front” to fight the challenge.

Shafqat Mahmood, the newly appointed chairman of a PTI policy planning committee, questioned “how democracy can be endangered” if his party sought better governance and a “transparent system” for elections.

But he seemed to be accusing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of inviting problems for himself, recalling his rows with two presidents, three army chiefs and a Supreme Court chief justice during his two short-lived tenures in the 1990s.

In support of his argument, the PTI member quoted Munir Niazi’s famous Punjabi couplet: ‘Kujh shehr de log wi zalam san, kujh sanu maran da shauq wi si’ (partly people of the town were cruel, partly we were also eager to die).

“If the PTI wants a transparent system of election, you say there is threat to democracy,” Mr Mahmood said about allegations often directed at his party by critics from the PML-N for holding protests over what the PTI calls large-scale rigging of the May 11, 2013 general elections, and asked the government to “look into yourselves, what you are doing”.

Another PTI member, Ali Mohammad Khan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also referred to Mr Achakzai’s warning and said he wished the government to complete its five-year term although he lashed out at its policies in a hard-hitting speech, adding: “If it succeeds, we succeed.”

Although a few ruling party members praised Mr Achakzai’s speech, no opposition party said yes or no to his proposals for a pro-democracy front and calling a joint sitting of both houses of parliament that came against the backdrop of speculations about perceived differences between the government and military leadership over some recent developments and protests held or planned from various platforms.

The PTI, the second largest opposition party in the National Assembly, is due to hold the next of a series of its protest rallies in Bahawalpur on June 22, while Awami Muslim League president Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a PTI ally, has planned to lead a so-called ‘train march” from Rawalpindi to Karachi on June 20. The Canada-based Pakistani religious scholar Allama Tahirul Qadri, who has also promised to hold anti-government protests of his own, has demanded army protection on his arrival in Islamabad from Canada on June 23.

The fifth day of the general debate on the budget for fiscal 2014-15 saw the agriculture lobby on both sides of the aisle coming out strongly with demands like abolishing levies on agricultural machinery and inputs. Several lawmakers laced their criticism or support for the budget with poetry, winning praise for their literary bent from PML-N member Chaudhry Mehmood Virk, who chaired the later part of the proceedings in the afternoon.

PPP’s Mir Munawar Ali Talpur, a brother-in-law of former president Asif Ali Zardari, faced an apparently crazy objection from a member of a government-allied religious party for using the usual title of ‘mushkal kusha’ (resolver of difficulty) for Hazrat Ali while recalling a saying urging rulers to pass on resources they get to people. Qari Mohammad Yusuf, of the JUI-F wanted the use of the title expunged from the record of the proceedings.

Nobody picked up an argument as most members in a thinly-attended house appeared hardly attentive to speeches but the chair, then held by Mr Virk, ignored the JUI-F member’s demand.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2014