national-assembly-670
A view of the National Assembly. — File photo

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly has completed its five-year constitutional term and there were 23 MNAs who did not say a word during all 50 sessions of the lower house of the parliament, DawnNews reported.

The 13th National Assembly made a history by becoming first of its kind to complete its full term on midnight Friday.

The dissolution of the national assembly is being considered a milestone in Pakistan, where the military has seized power three times in coups and ruled for around half the country’s existence.

However, there were 23 lawmakers who considered that speaking up in the house of representatives would not make any difference and kept their silence for the whole time.

Eight of those belonged to ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its coalition partner, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) also had same number of MNAs.

Two each from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Awami National Party (ANP) while PML-Functional and National People’s Party had one member each along with one independent MNA did not participate in any discussion in five years.

According to a performance report of the house’s five-year term issued by Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), 15 lawmakers belonging to Punjab province, three each from Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two from Balochistan showed no interest in public affairs.

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