KARACHI: Expressing serious reservations over the Elections (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 that the government promulgated just two days after abandoning its efforts to get the constitution amendment bill for ‘open vote’ in the coming Senate elections passed through the National Assembly, opposition parties have said the government is pushing the country towards a constitutional crisis.

In separate but similar reaction, senior leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on Sunday described the government move as an attack on parliament and the Constitution and an attempt to pressurise the court that is seized with a presidential reference on the same matter.

Addressing a press conference with Senator Raza Rabbani, PPP’s parliamentary leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman said: “PPP is a staunch supporter of transparency in elections but the overnight ordinance introduced by the government one day after both the houses of parliament were prorogued is a clear attack on the parliament’s inalienable right to amend the Constitution, as well as pressure on the court which is seized with the same matter in yet another move via presidential reference.

The PPP leader added: “Constitutional amendment is the parliament’s job and it cannot be changed via presidential ordinance. What will happen, for instance, once the ordinance lapses in 120 days and elections have been held under it? This kind of misrule has never been witnessed in Pakistan before, and inept advisers are plunging all the institutions of the country into crisis.”

Reacting to the government move, PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal said the ‘selected’ government after administrative turmoil was pushing the country towards constitutional anarchy.

“The ordinance is another worst attack on the Constitution,” he said while speaking to the media in Narowal.

He warned that if this “unconstitutional move” was upheld, the 18th Amendment might also be rolled back through a presidential ordinance, while another such ordinance might be promulgated to restore Article 58(2)(b) (of the Constitution that gave the president the power to dissolve the National Assembly in his discretion).

The secretary general of the opposition party said that when the government itself had sent a reference to the Supreme Court, trying to change the situation through an ordinance was tantamount to dictating a writ to the Supreme Court. He said the apex court should reject the ordinance and take action against the government for ‘contempt of court’.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2021