PESHAWAR, July 26: Heads and top leaders of major political parties at a seminar here termed the constitutional package and the political parties order “an assault on the federation” of the country and federal parliamentary system protected by the constitution.
The seminar on the Constitutional Package and Political Parties Order was organised by the Awami National Party on Friday.
ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan, Mutahidda Qaumi Movement deputy convener Aftab Ahmed Sheikh, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi, ARD general secretary Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak, Jamaat-i-Islami’s deputy chief Liaquat Baloch, PPP provincial vice-president Rahimdad Khan, JUI leader Mufti Kifayatullah, PML (N) leader Zafar Ali Shah, ANP leaders Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Bashir Ahmed Matta and Bashir Bilour also spoke.
Asfandyar Wali Khan said if these amendments were made part of the constitution, this would shut all constitutional, democratic and legal doors on the people and they would resort to illegal and undemocratic means to express themselves.
He said a strong Pakistan and a strong Centre were poles apart. “The establishment can build a strong Centre by the use of brute force, but it cannot make Pakistan strong. Only federal parliamentary system can pave the way for strong Pakistan,” he added.
Mr Khan underlined the need for making the Senate powerful enough to keep a check on the national assembly.
MQM’s Aftab Ahmed Sheikh said only the parliament had the right to amend the constitution. “We will not accept a single amendment by an individual to the constitution. It is an exclusive right of the people’s representatives to do so,” he added.
He underscored the need for empowering the federating units by quashing the concurrent list, a source of disharmony between the federation and the federating units. Barring defence, foreign affairs, finance and communications, the residual portfolios should be under provinces’ control, he added.
He said: “We want federation, not a unitary system, which had brought many miseries, including the dismemberment of the country.”
Dr Qadir Magsi called for drafting a new social contract based on the Resolution of Pakistan. “When the present amended and mutilated constitution could not save itself from the adventurists, how it could protect the people?” he inquired.
The new constitution, he said, was the need of the hour to deliver something new and more to the oppressed nations, faced as they were with the worst kind of exploitation.
He said the politicians had no need to establish working relations with those who had trampled the constitution under their feet. If the establishment stood united to usurp the peoples’ rights, it was the duty of the political parties to rally on a one-point agenda of getting rid of the military rulers, he added.
ARD general secretary Zafar Iqbal Jhagra said the politicians were not responsible for any national tragedy.
He said: “We love the army that had defended the country in 1965, but we flay the army that is involved in tinkering with the constitution and depriving the people of basic rights”. The constitution was a sacred document and the politicians would not allow the rulers to play with it, he added.
HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak said: “In the rest of the world, armies are subservient to their respective countries, but in our case, the country is subservient to the army”. The army had violated the constitution and staged a number of coups in Pakistan, he remarked.
Referring to what he called forced elections in political parties, he asked the government whether it would hold elections in the secret agencies, which had become the most organised political parties in Pakistan.
Liaquat Baloch said the JI was opposed to the any constitutional package. “All the political parties should unite themselves on a one-point agenda to dislodge the present government,” he added.