ISLAMABAD, May 12: The ruling coalition successfully averted a sure defeat in the National Assembly on Thursday when the chair refused to hold a vote on a government bill and cut short proceedings amid opposition protests. In what seemed to be one of the worst embarrassments to the government, absence of majority of its about 200 members turned the coalition’s comfortable majority into a humble minority against the opposition which wanted an immediate vote on a press-related bill.

“Shame, shame,” chanted opposition members when Pakistan Muslim League (PML) member Mohammad Riaz Pirzada, who was presiding over the house, rejected their demand for voting on the Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration (Amendment) Bill and adjourned the house till Friday.

“It is an open defeat of the government,” Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) member Hafiz Hussain Ahmed told reporters. His colleague Farid Piracha accused the government of “running away on every issue” and using the speaker to carry out its designs. Hafiz Hussain said opposition parties would meet on Friday to chalk out their line of action on the government’s move in the house, which had earlier deferred an inconclusive debate on desecration of the Holy Quran at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

Saad Rafiq of Pakistan Muslim League-N said the government appeared trying to avoid a resolution that opposition had planned to move in the lower house hsanto seek a US apology and punishment of those responsible for the desecration.

Reporters in the press gallery estimated that 25 to 30 ruling coalition members were present in the house but an opposition member put the figure between 12 and 14. About 50 opposition members, mainly from the ARD and MMA, were present at that time.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi requested the opposition to agree to passage of the bill that, they said, sought only two amendments in the Press, Newspapers, News Agencies and Books Registration Ordinance of 2002.

One of the proposed amendments would empower the deputy commissioner of Islamabad to decide applications for the grant of declarations to bring out newspapers from the federal capital. The 2002 ordinance had given this power to district coordination officers (DCOs) of the local government system, which does not exist in Islamabad. The second proposed amendment would empower the federal government to make rules under the ordinance in consultation with the provincial governments. In the law as it is in vogue, all powers have been given to provincial governments.

The opposition members attacked the bill on the grounds that the government had planned to introduce the local governments system in Islamabad and when the plan was implemented the law would necessitate another amendment. Some of them said the government was not sincere in giving Islamabad a democratic system. “Islamabad has been turned into an island where there is no democracy,” Aitzaz Ahsan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) said.

The MMA members complained the bill sought federal interference in provincial powers.

First it fell to the lot of MNA Bushra Rahman, who was then presiding over the house, to try to block a vote count on the bill by hurriedly turning to a call-attention notice which she said most members wanted to take up.

But the opposition members, who were in a majority in the house at that time, stood up and shouted “no, no” to the proposition. They asked for a vote count on whether the bill should be taken up for a second reading.