KARACHI: The former chairman of Senate, Raza Rabbani, expressed his fears that the new government may change the 18th constitutional amendment to curtail the financial autonomy of provinces.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Joint Action Committee on Friday to discuss the post-election situation he said that the federation did not want to give all financial resources to the provinces under the National Finance Commission.

He said that under the garb of financial crisis the federation may tell the provinces that it was not possible for it to give the NFC award share to them. He said that the actual fight was to stop the devolution of resources from the federation to provinces.

Mr Rabbani said that successive governments did not give due respect to parliament and some of them even undermined it.

He stressed the need for forming a broad-based alliance of all pro-people political parties, civil society organisations, intellectuals, writers, rights activists, individuals and political workers to wage a movement for the rights of the people.

He stressed that efforts should be made to ensure that all workers were given the right to participate in trade union activities to safeguard their rights and interests.

Banned organisations

Referring to participation of members of banned organisations in the general elections, Mr Rabbani expressed his concern and said that over 250 candidates associated with the proscribed outfits had been allowed by the Election Commission of Pakistan to contest elections.

He said that while candidates belonging to mainstream political parties faced hurdles in contesting elections, the ECP did not raise any objection to the participation of candidates of banned organisations.

He said that the administration had been used to limit poll campaigns of all major political parties and they were even barred from holding election rallies on the pretext of security threats, but one political party and its leaders were extended favours and it was allowed to hold gathering and processions, etc.

He claimed that the actual game began after the polling in the general elections concluded and polling agents were asked to leave the polling stations at the end of the polling time.

He said that the concept of fair and free elections had been badly violated with the expulsion of polling agents of political parties from polling stations during the vote counting process.

He said that a farce had been created by the ECP that an electronic system would be used for rapid announcement of poll results, but after the unusual delay in the announcement of results, the ECP announced that the system had actually failed. He said that it was a waste of funds from the national exchequer and the National Accountability Bureau should be directed to initiate a probe into the matter.

Senior journalist and a representative of the South Asian Free Media Association (Safma) Imtiaz Alam also supported the idea of formation of a wider platform for progressive elements.

Some speakers expressed concern that results of some of Karachi’s constituencies had been unnecessarily and deliberately delayed.

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research’s Karamat Ali, Abdul Khalique Junejo of Jeay Sindh Mahaz, Ayoub Qureshi of National Party, Nasir Mansoor of National Trade Union Federation, Amanullah Sheikh of Awami Jamhoori Party, Mahnaz Rehman of Aurat Foundation, Seema Maheshawary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and others also spoke.

At the end of the seminar, a committee was formed to prepare a set of recommendations for the formation of a wider platform of civil society organisations so that important issues could be jointly raised and effectively highlighted.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2018