Pakistan’s National Assembly has reopened under controversial circumstances, following elections the party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan claims were rigged.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s National Assembly convened Thursday under a cloud of controversy cast by general elections that the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan insists were rigged.
After lawmakers take their oaths, a coalition of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and some smaller parties is set to secure the posts of speaker, deputy speaker and prime minister in the coming days. But even the procedure for calling the assembly session was contentious — yet another sign that the country faces prolonged political turmoil.
On Wednesday, a parliamentary party meeting of the PML-N formally nominated Shehbaz Sharif for prime minister, positioning him to reprise the role he took after Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022. The party also nominated Ayaz Sadiq for speaker. “I believe the next [year and a half] or two years will be difficult but we have to stay united and face our opponents,” Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister and supreme leader of the PML-N, said during the meeting.
Nawaz had been widely expected to become prime minister again with the tacit backing of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment. But after the PML-N struggled on election day against independent candidates tied to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party cobbled together a coalition and nominated his brother Shehbaz.
The legislature opened under unusual circumstances.
Normally, it is up to Pakistan’s president to call a session. But current President Arif Alvi, who hails from the PTI, refused to do so until 70 proportional representation seats reserved for women and minorities are doled out appropriately. Although the PTI was barred from contesting the elections itself on a technicality, the independent candidates it supported won the most seats, and 86 of them have so far joined an alliance called the Sunni Ittehad Council. In theory, this should give them a share of the reserved seats in the 336-seat chamber, yet the assignments remain up in the air.
Until 2010, the president had the sole authority to call the inaugural session of the assembly. That year, an amendment was passed giving presidents a deadline: 21 days after elections. So when Alvi refused to comply by Thursday’s deadline, the speaker called the session.
The amendment “bound the president to call the session within a fixed period to ensure that he can’t manipulate the system,” said Tahir Naeem Malik, a professor of international relations at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Islamabad.
Abdul Jabbar Nasir, an election analyst in Karachi, said the speaker did the right thing by going ahead. “While the case of the reserved seats of PTI-backed independents is a serious one,” he said, “it does not justify a delay in convening the first session of the National Assembly.”
Alvi is due to be replaced by the new coalition government’s pick for president, the PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari, in the weeks ahead. But forging onward with parliamentary proceedings in this manner was sure to further anger supporters of Khan, who remains imprisoned on corruption and other charges that he denies.
“People voted for PTI [aligned] candidates en masse,” said Muhammad Inayat, an Islamabad resident. “First, the results were [allegedly] tampered with, and now PTI as a group is being deprived of its due share of reserved seats.”
He described the situation as a “dark chapter in the electoral history of Pakistan.”
The Election Commission of Pakistan took up the reserved seats issue on Wednesday, with PTI lawyers arguing that the lawmakers who joined the Sunni Ittehad Council must be granted the proportionate spots in the legislature. Lawyers for the PML-N, PPP and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan argued otherwise.
If the Sunni Ittehad Council is not granted the seats, they would go to other parties.
“I see this matter ending up in courts, where the final decision will be made,” said Malik at NUML.
Said Nasir, “There is no justification to deprive [the Sunni Ittehad Council] of these seats.” He also noted that there are relevant precedents.
The controversy over the seats is a microcosm of the turmoil surrounding the elections, in which the PTI says its candidates really won as many as 177 seats before the numbers were allegedly manipulated. Election authorities have denied the accusations.
Now the legislature is getting off to a rocky start that bodes ill for resolving Pakistan’s problems, including an economic crisis and pressing concerns over a rise in militant attacks. Scrambling to avoid a debt default, Islamabad is relying on support from the International Monetary Fund, while on Thursday the caretaker finance minister told Reuters that China had agreed to roll over a $2 billion loan due in March.
Nasir said political differences should have been sorted out before calling the first session “to avoid any unwanted controversy.”
Malik agreed that the circumstances are unfortunate. “These developments,” he said, “will surely push Pakistan deeper into political instability.”
Source : asia.nikkei