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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: Opposition parties cut short protest shouting but walked out of the National Assembly on Tuesday, vowing to build up pressure on the government for a settlement on the Legal Framework Order (LFO).
Opposition’s absence from most part of the sitting devoted to private members’ business allowed the treasury benches to carry on proceedings with a relative calm.
However, the opposition used its walkout to discuss ways to carry on its campaign as the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) informed the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) what the ruling PML-Q had agreed in their separate talks to end the row over presidential decrees forming the LFO.
Spokesmen for both the ARD and the MMA declined to give details of their meeting during the walkout but told reporters they would continue their movement until the government agreed to bring the LFO to parliament for approval rather than insisting that it had already become part of the Constitution.
Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali attended the session but there was no indication of when he would convene a meeting with leaders of all parliamentary parties to try to finalize a constitutional package on lines of recommendations formulated by a committee of the PML-Q and MMA negotiators at a meeting in Lahore on Saturday.
CANTT BOARDS SLAMMED: A call-attention notice from a PML-Q member from Rawalpindi district, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, produced a heated debate over the working of cantonment boards, with most speakers called for applying the same devolution plan there as was for other local government bodies in the four provinces.
Parliamentary secretary for defence Tanvir Hussain Syed said a schedule for elections in the cantonment boards under a new devolution plan was under consideration as the defence ministry awaited funds for the purpose.
But he was unable to satisfy members’ concerns on whether the devolution plan for the boards was similar to or different from the one enforced in other parts of the country, saying this question could be answered by the National Reconstruction Bureau, which had nobody in the house at the time to speak for it.
Most speakers said the plan for the cantonment boards should be brought to the National Assembly for approval and should not be different from the one under which local council elections were held in 2001 and 2002. Some of them criticized what they saw as a dominating role of station commanders in running the boards.
Parliamentary secretary Tanvir Hussain, himself a retired army major, said he agreed with members’ concerns but that the system for the cantonment boards was not his ministry’s making. However, he promised that his ministry would suggest improvements in the system at an appropriate time.
OFFICES FOR MEMBERS: At the end of a long debate, carried from two previous private members’ days, the house passed a resolution demanding that its speaker name a special committee to suggest ways and means for the provision of regular offices and essential staff for every member of the lower house at Islamabad and in their constituencies, to help them improve their efficiency.
But despite his declared plans to end the sitting by Zuhar prayers, Deputy Speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqub allowed parliamentary secretary for finance Omar Ayub Khan to deliver an invective against self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
As done by several of his colleagues on Monday, the grandson of Pakistan’s first military ruler Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan rose on a point of order to accuse Ms Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari of massive corruption and urge opposition members to dissociate themselves from “looters”.
The opposition accuses the treasury benches of launching such attacks to provoke its members as a follow-up of a call by President Pervez Musharraf to the ruling coalition last month to play a more proactive role to counter the anti-LFO campaign.
“Go Musharraf go”, “no LFO no”, the opposition members chanted along with desk-thumping immediately after the recitation from the holy Quran at the start of the session.
After only about five minutes of the noisy protest, they walked out to move into an adjacent lounge used by them where MMA leaders briefed them about the weekend talks with a PML-Q team.
But while the treasury benches were discussing Mr Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s call-attention notice on “non-conduct of elections and non-implementation of devolution plan” in cantonment boards, the opposition members re-entered the house chanting slogans, including “give another push to falling walls” and “give another push to traitors of the Constitution”.
But instead of taking their seats they went out from another exit.
The house was adjourned until 9.30am on Friday.
