ISLAMABAD, Feb 9: Absenteeism cut short National Assembly proceedings on Friday for the third day running, blocking a long-delayed key media bill in what has become a usual disgrace for the ruling coalition although an angry speaker this time gunned for the opposition.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain had some harsh words for a depleted opposition when Nayyar Bokhari of the People’s Party Parliamentarians complained of a lack of quorum that prevented the house to resume the second reading of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Amendment) Bill when the 28-clause draft seemed set for a certain passage.
Nineteen clauses of the bill, which seeks mainly to allow newspaper owners to run private television channels, were passed on Thursday before the chair put it off until Friday on a government advice apparently to avoid the embarrassment of a forced adjournment as the opposition benches seemed intent to point out a lack of quorum after several amendments proposed by them were rejected.“The opposition too has a responsibility in running parliament,” Mr Hussain remarked after Mr Bokhari made his move on Friday just as the turn of bill came after the question hour and disposal of some other minor items on the agenda.
“What do you want to prove by obstructing legislation? Do you want to prove that the assembly is not working?” the speaker asked before ordering a member count, only to find that the 342-seat house was much short of the required one-fourth, or 86 members, forcing him to adjourn it until the quorum was complete.
Mr Hussain returned to the house 15 minutes later and, finding that not enough members were present, adjourned it for a two-day weekend until 4pm on Monday, when the bill is likely to be taken up again besides a scheduled debate on the law and order situation in the country.
Ministers too had faced the speaker’s scorn on Wednesday for their absence during the question hour before the house first took up the Pemra bill, as recommended by a mediation committee of the National Assembly and the Senate after shuttling between the two houses since being first tabled in the assembly in October 2004.
Lack of quorum has frequently disrupted proceedings during more than four years of the present National Assembly mainly because of absences from the 201-strong ruling coalition despite repeated admonitions by party and government leaders and the presence of a record 125 office-holders – ministers, ministers of state, parliamentary secretaries and standing committee chairpersons – expected to maintain a high attendance in the house.
While the National Assembly adjourned without conducting any business on the first of the present session on Tuesday to mourn the death of an opposition member, proceedings have been cut short because of lack of quorum for all the remaining three days. The situation worsened by the depletion of the 140-strong opposition after all 64 members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal began a boycott of the house on Wednesday until Feb 13 to protest against last November’s passage of a controversial women’s rights bill by both houses of parliament.
The MMA’s leadership forming a Supreme Council will meet on Feb 13 to decide whether to carry out or revoke an earlier alliance threat to resign from the National Assembly over the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, which is designed to protect women from the misuse of two controversial Hudood ordinances about rape enforced in 1979 by then military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq but is called un-Islamic by the MMA.
The occupation of a children’s library in central Islamabad by armed women of an unauthorised madressah for 20 days echoed in the National Assembly for the second day on Friday, with PML-N member Khwaja Saad Rafique proposing the formation of a joint government-opposition house committee to help resolve the stand-off peacefully.
Voices were raised from within the ruling coalition on Thursday asking the government why it had failed to disarm the students, some of whom were seen carrying Kalashnikovs and many long bamboo sticks to resist any police move to dislodge them from the library run by the education ministry.
Ahmed Hassan adds: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Mohammad Ali Durrani on Friday accused the opposition of deliberately breaking quorum to hamper the legislation process.
He was talking to journalists at the Parliament House’s media centre.