ISLAMABAD, Nov 16: From democrats to turncoats to religious revolutionaries swore on Saturday to become the country’s newest National Assembly that is — at least for now — designed to be subordinate to five more years of military control.
Two hours before the 342-seat House held its inaugural meeting, Gen Pervez Musharraf took the oath as president for five more years with sweeping powers to retain his grip on state affairs even after a civilian prime minister takes office possibly next week.
Despite the promise of only a partial restoration of democracy after more than three years of military rule, the country made history as a record number of 72 women and more than 60 members from religious parties marched into the parliament hall to take the oath.
Some of the MNAs-elect from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal are the self-proclaimed allies of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban against whom Pakistan had joined the US-led coalition against terrorism.
Their emergence in such a big number and a serious claim to take prime ministership has threatened Pakistan’s key role in the coalition’s military campaign in Afghanistan. Never before so many members of religious parties and women had entered parliament.
The previous assemblies had less than 20 members from all religious parties put together and slightly more women from all parties — including 20 elected to women’s reserved seats now increased to 60 — and the maximum two women from the Jamaat-i-Islami sat in the House in 1980s.
Saturday’s oath-taking by President Musharraf marked the beginning of his new five-year term he won through the controversial referendum of April 30 in which he was the only candidate for the office he will hold in addition to that of the Chief of the Army Staff.
The result of that referendum, which was opposed by most of the political parties, on Saturday became part of the Constitution that was partly revived on Friday night after being in suspension since Gen Musharraf took power in the Oct 12, 1999 coup that toppled Nawaz Sharif.
BLISSFUL IGNORANCE: It was a show of blissful ignorance when the PPP, MMA and PML-N — all supporting parliamentary supremacy — said in the House their members would take the oath only under the 1973 Constitution as it existed before the 1999 coup and not under the controversial Legal Framework Order (LFO) decreed by the president.
But in effect the oath given to them was under a Constitution that incorporates the LFO — a package of constitutional amendments decreed by the president, including those empowering him to sack the future prime ministers, dissolve parliament and set up an overseeing National Security Council to give armed forces a permanent role in the country’s governance.
It also gives the president the previously prime ministerial powers to appoint armed forces’ chiefs and provincial governors, who in turn will be empowered to sack provincial chief ministers and dissolve provincial assemblies with the presidential assent.
The LFO is the main sticking point holding up an understanding between Gen Musharraf and opposition parties over the country’s political future and the presence of its key provisions in the Constitution will mean that he rather than parliament has supremacy in the country’s governance.
Though the session was only for oath taking and signing of a roll by 324 members who were present, the real focus was on wheeling and dealing for prime ministership.
The organizers had purposely not allotted the prime minister’s desk to any of the members for the day’s seating in the alphabetical order of their names and all the three prime ministerial candidates — Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali of the PML- Q, Makhdoom Amin Fahim of the PPP and Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the MMA — were seated on back benches.
Mr Jamali was loudly cheered by his party members as he goose-stepped to the rostrum to sign the members’ roll, and so were Mr Fahim and Maulana Fazl.
But it was clear that the emergence of a so-called forward bloc of alleged turncoats in the PPP, no group was yet sure of success despite eight days’ postponement of the session from Nov 8 in a move that was seen to give the PML-Q more time to win over votes from other groups.
Shortly after the former speaker, Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro, announced Monday for the election of the speaker and deputy speaker, he was persuaded mainly by the PML-Q leaders to change the date to Tuesday. That means at least another day’s delay in voting for prime minister that will follow the speaker’s choice.