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KARACHI, April 2: On Wednesday the Sindh Assembly secretariat remained busy giving final touches to its preparations for holding the inaugural session of the newly-elected house, which is scheduled for April 5.
Outgoing Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah will administer the oath to the newly-elected 163 members in a house of 168.
After the administration of oath by the speaker, members will be asked to sign the roll, which will be followed by the announcement of the election schedule for the office of speaker and deputy speaker.
The next day (April 6), nominations will be received, followed by scrutiny, while the final list of candidates will be displayed at 4pm.
On April 7, the election of the speakers will be held, to be followed by an evening session for the ascertainment of the leader of the house. The next day (April 8) the chief minister will be administered oath at the Governor’s House and in the afternoon session, the newly-inducted chief minister will get the vote of confidence.
Regarding the details of the five constituencies from where no member could be present to take oath, two seats were vacated by Makhdoom Amin Fahim of the PPP and Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashdi of the PML-F, who returned on NA as well as PA seats but opted to sit in the National Assembly.
The result of two seats, including one reserved seat for minorities, could not be notified because of litigation while one seat had fallen vacant due to the death of Arbab Abdullah from Tharparker.
It is a mere coincidence that in the last inaugural session of the assembly in 2002, 163 members were also supposed to be administered oath, but only 162 could make it as the lone member of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement was not able to. Five seats had fallen vacant as five members who were elected on NA and PA seats had opted for National Assembly seats.
In the 2002 elections four women had returned from general seats. They were Sassui Palejo and Marvi Pir Mazhar of the PPP and Bilqees Mukhtar and Ambreen of the MQM, while in the present assembly this honour went only to Sassui Palejo.The new house, which will be the 13th since 1937 and the 9th since the dissolution of One Unit, is meeting after 46 days of its election on Feb 18, 2008.
The last assembly had met in its inaugural session on Dec 12 after 62 days of the general elections held on Oct 10, 2002.
Fuzzy maths
The inordinate delay was attributed to give space to aspirants for mustering a majority of at least 85 members required to form the government in a house of 168, as the outcome of the 2002 general elections was a split mandate in which the biggest group was of the PPP with 67 members.
The other parties had a representation of 40 (MQM), 18 (PML-Q), 16 (National Alliance), 12 (PML-F), 10 (MMA), two independents and one Muhajir Qaumi Movement member, while the result of two seats was withheld.
The time factor tilted in favour of the PML-Q which, despite having only 18 members in the house, succeeded in capturing the slot of chief minister by mustering the support of smaller groups, except for the PPP and MMA.
However, the newly elected house has given a clear-cut mandate to the PPP, which has 89 seats, while the position of the other parties is: MQM (51), PML-Q (10), PML-F (8), NPP (3), and ANP (2).
Despite the PPP’s mandate, the inordinate delay of 46 days in the inaugural session was resented by the majority party as well as political analysts.
They were of the view that anti-democratic forces and the establishment had joined hands to facilitate their handpicked leaders in order to manipulate and muster a majority in the centre. Initially, they did manage to spark controversy within the PPP over the most sought-after office of prime minister.
But PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari successfully foiled the conspiracy to break the party when a bruised Makhdoom Amin Fahim emerged from the crisis as a loyalist.
In Sindh, adventuresome types failed to find even a single MPA-elect in the ranks of the PPP to stir up a controversy over the selection of the chief minister, speaker and leader of the parliamentary party.
Some analysts had attributed the unity of the party to the pressure of party activists who had made it amply clear to their leaders that they would not tolerate lotas anymore, or else the leadership would have to face the ire of the public.
