ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: Opposition parties continued their anti-LFO protest in parliament on Friday, breaking quorum in one house to block proceedings and walking out of the other in an uproar.
The National Assembly could not conduct any business for lack of quorum and was adjourned for a two-day weekend recess after the government failed to muster the minimum one-fourth, or 86 members, of the 342-seat lower house in opposition’s absence.
But the opposition move to remain out of the session spared the ruling coalition from usual opposition desk-thumping and slogan-chanting against President Pervez Musharraf and the Legal Framework Order.
About the same time, the Senate, meeting in an adjacent chamber, witnessed an uproar over President Musharraf’s reported remarks in Canada that called parliament members “immature” before the opposition stormed out of the 100-seat upper house.
Both main opposition groupings — the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal — seemed girding up their lions for a promised protest movement outside parliament if the government failed to settle the LFO issue.
The MMA leaders said they were consulting the ARD about a “mass contact” campaign they had already threatened to launch on October 6.
SPEAKER EMBARRASSED: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain seemed embarrassed after repeated counts of members showed lack of quorum the day he took chair on return from a foreign tour.
The opposition pointed out the lack of quorum immediately after the recitation from the Holy Quran as the house met late by more than an hour.
A brief suspension of the house failed to bring enough members to complete the quorum after some opposition members had walked out. But a rebel MMA member from the Karak district of the NWFP, Maulana Shah Abdul Aziz, who differs with the opposition’s mode of protest, remained seated inside the house.
An opposition member, who stayed in the hall, again pointed out a lack of quorum when the house resumed after about 25 minutes and the speaker called for the start of the question-hour.
Bells were rung after hectic efforts by the PML-Q chief whip Abdul Sattar Laleka and his colleagues failed to bring enough members into the house as some opposition parliamentarians watched the scene with delight from a side-door leading to their lounge in the parliament house.
But the bells too proved to be of no avail and the speaker finally adjourned the house until 5pm on Monday.
SENATE FURORE: In the Senate, a strong denunciation by MMA Senator Prof Ghafoor Ahmed of the president’s remarks about parliament in a speech on Wednesday night provoked an uproar from the treasury benches.
Rising on a point of order, the MMA senator accused the president of insulting parliament and the nation by reportedly saying in an address to Pakistanis at a dinner in Ottawa that “people in parliament are not mature”.
“True democracy cannot be established in the country unless those who break the constitution are put on the gallows,” the senator said.
An attempt by Minister of State for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Raza Hayat Hiraj to rebut Prof Ghafoor provoked opposition shouting of “go Musharraf go” and “no LFO no” and the subsequent walkout. There were some counter-chants from women senators on the treasury benches.
Mr Hiraj, who belongs to the PPP-Patriots, and seven PML-Q senators, in their speeches later, slammed the opposition and defended President Musharraf, some of them accusing Prof Ghafoor of insulting the house and the chair.
They included PML-Q’s Chaudhry Anwar Bhinder (Punjab), Tariq Azeem Khan (Punjab), Mrs Tanveer Khalid (Sindh), Nisar Ahmad Memon (Sindh), Javed Ashraf (Punjab), Khalid Ranjha (Punjab) and Abdur Razzaq Thahim (Sindh).
After a smooth question-hour and Railways and Communications Minister Ghous Bakhsh Mahar’s explanation, on a call-attention notice from National Alliance’s Mohammad Ali Durrani, about the Sept 20 train-bus collision near Malikwal that killed about 30 people, deputy chairman Khalilur Rehman adjourned the Senate until 6.30pm on Monday.
