Bringing the house down: PML-N turns up the heat in National Assembly
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Monday created a ruckus loud enough to force the National Assembly proceedings to end prematurely.
Sporting black armbands, the opposition party’s members outnumbered the treasury benches, and the remaining members of the ruling coalition seemed overpowered by the high-voltage protest on the floor of the house.
Hours before the demonstration began in the lower house, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif warned the premier to step down or face a relentless protest movement.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who has attended nearly every NA session, except of course when on foreign visits, opted to sit out of this one.
However, he did make an appearance in the Senate, which met for the first time since the newly-elected Senators took oath, giving his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) a massive presence in the upper house.
Most of the federal ministers too, stuck with the premier in the Senate. Seats allotted to ministers in the front row of the National Assembly remained vacant.
The desk-thumping, booklet-tearing demonstrations erupted when petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain rose to respond to a question. PML-N’s Sohail Zia Butt failed to acknowledge Hussain’s stature and mocked: “Who is this man? He cannot answer my question.”
Anti-government slogans such as “go Gilani go” reverberated through the house then and the minister soon realised that any attempts to seek attention by speaking louder would be futile.
Booklets provided to MNAs containing the agenda for the session were torn and tossed towards the general direction of the speaker. Abid Sher Ali turned the heat up a few notches by raising slogans standing right in front of the speaker’s chair.
When Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi offered the floor to a female MNA from the PML-N to answer a question, she retorted: “prior to that, I would like to speak on the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Kundi, however, cut her short saying “No, you cannot discuss that. Thank you very much.” And the microphone went dead before the PML-N parliamentarian.
The next slogan, “Alvida, Alvida, Gilani Alvida” was delivered with more pomp and was accompanied by multi-coloured placards that the protestors drew from their bags. The placards read: “Adlia Mazboot, Pakistan Mazboot” (Strong judiciary, strong Pakistan).
The deputy speaker refused to let the opposition discuss the SC verdict on three more occasions and the question “hour” lasted only 20 minutes.
Other items on the agendas were the Drug Regulatory Ordinance 2012 and a bill to further amend the Chartered Accountants Ordinance, 1961.
Left with little options, Kundi adjourned the unruly session which lasted for about 35 minutes, from 6:25 to 7 pm.
Head-on collision?
IT has taken only a matter of days for the Supreme Court judgment against Prime Minister Gilani to translate into a full-blown political confrontation.
So long as ministers and other senior figures on either side of the parliamentary divide were sniping at each other, the matter could have been contained. But yesterday, Nawaz Sharif upped the ante by demanding the resignation of the prime minister, and if that was not forthcoming the PML-N supremo pledged to launch a protest movement. At the moment, the PML-N’s game-plan is not clear: does it hope to use the protest movement to build pressure for early elections or is this just an attempt to shed the last vestiges of the ‘friendly opposition’ tag with elections on the horizon? Using the SC-government tussle over the Swiss letter for electoral ends is not without risks. It isn’t clear if a pro-judiciary-type movement can be fashioned out of this particular issue as it was several years ago when Gen Musharraf had tried to shut Chief Justice Chaudhry out of office. The earlier campaign helped the PML-N to unexpected success in the 2008 elections but this time round the matter is less clear-cut. The PML-N brain trust will be furiously calculating the potential gains versus the risk that a protest movement which doesn’t catch the imagination of the public could pose to the PML-N at the next election.
So far, the more sensible route to follow appears to be the one suggested by Prime Minister Gilani. The prime minister’s suggestion in the Senate yesterday that everyone wait for the SC’s full judgment was obviously laced with self-interest. Delay has been a central part of the PPP’s strategy in its troubles with the court. However, the pledge inside parliament by the prime minister that if he were de-notified he would accept the verdict and go home is one that the opposition ought to take seriously and hold him to. After all, the PML-N has the right to ask the speaker of the National Assembly to refer the matter of Mr Gilani’s disqualification to the Election Commission and if the final judgment of the SC clarifies the ambiguity of the short order, the matter should be settled relatively quickly.
Yet, the sensible path is not always the one treaded by the political class here. After four years of relative calm, with a general election at most a year or so away, the PML-N’s and the PPP’s calculations may lean towards confrontation at this point in time.
Perhaps if the full judgment of the SC were issued soon, some of the uncertainty may be lifted and matters could settle down again.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Monday created a ruckus loud enough to force the National Assembly proceedings to end prematurely.
Sporting black armbands, the opposition party’s members outnumbered the treasury benches, and the remaining members of the ruling coalition seemed overpowered by the high-voltage protest on the floor of the house.
Hours before the demonstration began in the lower house, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif warned the premier to step down or face a relentless protest movement.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who has attended nearly every NA session, except of course when on foreign visits, opted to sit out of this one.
However, he did make an appearance in the Senate, which met for the first time since the newly-elected Senators took oath, giving his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) a massive presence in the upper house.
Most of the federal ministers too, stuck with the premier in the Senate. Seats allotted to ministers in the front row of the National Assembly remained vacant.
The desk-thumping, booklet-tearing demonstrations erupted when petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain rose to respond to a question. PML-N’s Sohail Zia Butt failed to acknowledge Hussain’s stature and mocked: “Who is this man? He cannot answer my question.”
Anti-government slogans such as “go Gilani go” reverberated through the house then and the minister soon realised that any attempts to seek attention by speaking louder would be futile.
Booklets provided to MNAs containing the agenda for the session were torn and tossed towards the general direction of the speaker. Abid Sher Ali turned the heat up a few notches by raising slogans standing right in front of the speaker’s chair.
When Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi offered the floor to a female MNA from the PML-N to answer a question, she retorted: “prior to that, I would like to speak on the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Kundi, however, cut her short saying “No, you cannot discuss that. Thank you very much.” And the microphone went dead before the PML-N parliamentarian.
The next slogan, “Alvida, Alvida, Gilani Alvida” was delivered with more pomp and was accompanied by multi-coloured placards that the protestors drew from their bags. The placards read: “Adlia Mazboot, Pakistan Mazboot” (Strong judiciary, strong Pakistan).
The deputy speaker refused to let the opposition discuss the SC verdict on three more occasions and the question “hour” lasted only 20 minutes.
Other items on the agendas were the Drug Regulatory Ordinance 2012 and a bill to further amend the Chartered Accountants Ordinance, 1961.
Left with little options, Kundi adjourned the unruly session which lasted for about 35 minutes, from 6:25 to 7 pm.
Head-on collision?
IT has taken only a matter of days for the Supreme Court judgment against Prime Minister Gilani to translate into a full-blown political confrontation.
So long as ministers and other senior figures on either side of the parliamentary divide were sniping at each other, the matter could have been contained. But yesterday, Nawaz Sharif upped the ante by demanding the resignation of the prime minister, and if that was not forthcoming the PML-N supremo pledged to launch a protest movement. At the moment, the PML-N’s game-plan is not clear: does it hope to use the protest movement to build pressure for early elections or is this just an attempt to shed the last vestiges of the ‘friendly opposition’ tag with elections on the horizon? Using the SC-government tussle over the Swiss letter for electoral ends is not without risks. It isn’t clear if a pro-judiciary-type movement can be fashioned out of this particular issue as it was several years ago when Gen Musharraf had tried to shut Chief Justice Chaudhry out of office. The earlier campaign helped the PML-N to unexpected success in the 2008 elections but this time round the matter is less clear-cut. The PML-N brain trust will be furiously calculating the potential gains versus the risk that a protest movement which doesn’t catch the imagination of the public could pose to the PML-N at the next election.
So far, the more sensible route to follow appears to be the one suggested by Prime Minister Gilani. The prime minister’s suggestion in the Senate yesterday that everyone wait for the SC’s full judgment was obviously laced with self-interest. Delay has been a central part of the PPP’s strategy in its troubles with the court. However, the pledge inside parliament by the prime minister that if he were de-notified he would accept the verdict and go home is one that the opposition ought to take seriously and hold him to. After all, the PML-N has the right to ask the speaker of the National Assembly to refer the matter of Mr Gilani’s disqualification to the Election Commission and if the final judgment of the SC clarifies the ambiguity of the short order, the matter should be settled relatively quickly.
Yet, the sensible path is not always the one treaded by the political class here. After four years of relative calm, with a general election at most a year or so away, the PML-N’s and the PPP’s calculations may lean towards confrontation at this point in time.
Perhaps if the full judgment of the SC were issued soon, some of the uncertainty may be lifted and matters could settle down again.
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