KARACHI, Dec 8: The Sindh Assembly’s inaugural session, rescheduled for Thursday, is destined to give a surprise when division will be called for the election of speaker and deputy speaker.
The session will begin at 10am with the ceremony to administer the oath to the members-elect.
The deliberations of the newly-elected House will be presided over by former deputy speaker, Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah before the election of the new Speaker and deputy speaker by call of division to be made by the presiding officer. The session will be prorogued after the elections.
Election for the Leader of the House will be held through secret ballots in the next session, to be summoned by the governor, for which no date has yet been announced.
The governor had first scheduled the inaugural session for Nov 25 but delayed it for three days. Again on Nov 27, he postponed the session indefinitely on the request of the King’s party which was not sure of sufficient support for its candidates for the slots of speaker, deputy speaker and Leader of the House. However, the governor fixed Dec 12 as the new date for the session.
Elected members belonging to other parties and groups, mainly the major ones, felt discomfort due to the repeated postponement on the request of a much smaller group especially in the wake of an unhindered democratic process in other provinces.
It may be noted here that the assemblies in Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan have completed the process of oath-taking, elections of speaker, deputy speaker and Leaders of the House by Nov 28. Even, cabinets have been formed in these provinces before Eid holidays.
Except for the King’s party and its allies, all the major parties and certain members-elect have been pouring scorns on the government for their discriminatory attitude. They have been castigating the government for not allowing the people’s representatives to manage the affairs without any unethical and undemocratic interference. They have further been urging the government to refrain from causing an inordinate delay in the process of power transfer to the elected representatives.
Political circles believe that Sindh assembly would now be meeting as per the Dec 12 session even if the King’s party came out with same request for further postponement. They, however, pointed out that the inaugural session had been restricted to the oath-taking ceremony and elections for the speaker and deputy speaker leaving the post of the Leader of the House vacant. They say that this create doubts about the early convening of the next session contrary to the normal practice under which an assembly usually holds its second session the next day.
Substantiating their skepticism, the political circles noted that the King’s favourites were still not in a position to get their nominee elected as Leader of the House.
They hinted that the gap between the first and second sessions of the assembly would provide extra time to the parliamentary parties to streamline their strength in the House.
In the 163-strong assembly, every parliamentary party is striving to muster support of 85 members for a simple majority. The actual strength of the House is 168 but five of the members- elect had opted to retain their dual National Assembly seats and vacating their provincial seats.
The single largest party, the PPP Parliamentarians, with 67 members in the House, falls short of 18 members’ support though it claims that it can prove a simple majority at any time.
Likewise, Muttahida Qaumi Movement has 41 members while Grand National Alliance, led by PML-Q, has a strength of 29 members. The numerical strength of other groups in the House is PML-F 13, MMA 10, Independents 02 and Mohajir Qaumi Movement 01.
The PPP requires the support of at least two groups having a strength in double digits. It has been expecting support of PML-F and MMA as others have been signalling support to the King’s party which, after forming its government in the Centre and Punjab, has succeeded in becoming a coalition partner with the MMA both in NWFP and Balochistan.
The PPP’s talks with MMA have so far proved futile apparently because the former’s chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, is unwilling to form a PPP-MMA coalition. The PML-F chief, Pir Pagara, has also been supporting the MQM nominee for the slot of chief minister.
If the PPP’s dilemma continues, there are fears that the PML-Q will succeed in its ongoing efforts to create a forward bloc within the PPP of which an unspecified number of members are believed to have been in touch with the King’s party.
The King’s party indeed is not enjoying a comfortable position due to its failure to find a consensus candidate as the CM. Its major supporter, the MQM, wants its nominee, Syed Sardar Ahmed, elected while the GNA has fielded Dr Arbab Rahim. Despite all out efforts, the PML-Q leadership has so far failed to convince the PML-F chief, Pir Pagara, to back Dr Arbab. Even Sardar Farooq Khan Leghari also tried to persuade him but in vain.
This situation may plunge the assembly into a deeper crisis unless the parliamentary parties managed to strike a deal on sharing power within the next 72 hours.