KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that the opposition will try to get its nominee elected as new chairman of the Senate as “the majority party in the upper house” has the right to bring its chairman.

Addressing a press conference at PPP Media Cell on Sunday along with newly elected 10 senators of the party from Sindh, he said that at present the PPP, and not the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, was the majority party in the Senate as senators in Punjab were elected independently without any party affiliation and they were yet to join a political party.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the PML-N had the right to try to emerge as the largest single party in parliament and also to get its nominee elected as Senate chairman.

However, he said, it would be better for the sake of check and balance on the system of governance that Senate chairman belonged to the opposition as the upper house had to oversee the role of the National Assembly. He said the PPP would consult all political parties having representation in the Senate, except the PML-N, for bringing an opposition-backed chairman of Senate.

Govt accused of denying Fata people fundamental rights

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said it was wrong to accuse the PPP of horse-trading in the Senate elections, adding that lawmakers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) did not accept leadership of their own party. “The MQM-P’s time is over,” he added.

Recalling that the provincial election commissioner had termed the Senate elections in Sindh most transparent and fair in the entire country, he said that the PPP had secured votes in the Senate polls on the basis of its performance and, therefore, instead of pointing fingers at others, the MQM-P should concentrate on resolving its internal issues.

He advised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan to bring forward the party’s ideological activists, as was done by the PPP, instead of giving election tickets to “ATMs only”.

Superior courts and Fata

The PPP has accused the government of denying the people of the Federally Adminis­tered Tribal Areas (Fata) their fundamental rights by not extending jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court to the tribal region.

“Any further delay in this regard is criminal and not acceptable,” said the PPP chairman while talking to a delegation of women activists of the party from tribal agencies at Zardari House in Islamabad.

The eight-member delegation, led by Dr Saima, president of the Fata chapter of the PPP’s women wing, comprised office-bearers from almost all tribal agencies.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said a bill on extension of jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the PHC to Fata, recently passed by the National Assembly and sent to the Senate, contained some serious anomalies which needed to be rectified in the upper house.

The jurisdiction of the SC and the PHC should be extended to tribal areas in one go and not in piecemeal and without requiring any notification by the government, he said.

The PPP chairman recalled that initially the superior courts also did not have the jurisdiction over the Provincially Adminis­tered Tribal Areas. However, in 1973 the courts’ jurisdiction was extended to the region though an act of parliament without requiring any government notification.

“People of Fata have been waiting for 70 long years to get access to justice and must not be kept deprived any more on various pretexts,” he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari rejected objections raised by some political parties over extending jurisdiction of the superior courts to Fata and said: “Articles 175 (2) and 247 (7) of the Constitution allow parliament to enact a law to extend jurisdiction of superior courts to tribal areas.”

The PPP chief said his party’s government had extended the Political Parties Order to Fata, opening doors for all political parties to engage its people in alternative political narratives.

The PPP government, he added, had also opened the door for reforms in the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation and it was now time to undo the FCR and introduce normal laws of Pakistan in the tribal areas.

“If coercive laws are introduced in tribal areas through a presidential regulation why can’t progressive laws be also extended to these areas to protect fundamental rights of its people,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2018