Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has said that the derailment of the current system would create problems for the upcoming parliament.

While talking exclusively to Daily Times, the speaker said that if today something happens to parliament, a wrong precedence would be set for posterity, which should be avoided at all costs. He was replying to a question on the rumours rife in the capital that an interim set-up might be instituted before the Senate elections due in March 2018.

When asked about his recent comments that had strengthened these rumours, he said, “I have already said what I wanted to say looking at the situation. Do you think it was normal to see a bunch of political leaders from different parties seeing Dr Tahirul Qadri whose sit-in they had opposed in unison?”

Two other sources close to the top leadership of PML-N told Daily Times on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorised to speak to the media, that this recent statement of the speaker was a ‘warning shot’ that was fired in order to remind all the parliamentary parties that “it won’t just be PML-N that would go home; with it would go everybody”.

Since past many days, there have been ubiquitous rumours among the political and journalistic circles that a situation would be created for the federal government to resign, and better still for dissolving the National and Provincial Assemblies followed by the establishment of the interim government in provinces and the centre. Some prominent politicians and senior journalists have been indicating since past two weeks about the possibility of a deal between the PPP and some non-democratic elements that want to prevent Senate elections by the current Electoral College.

People’s Party leaders, however, have been strongly denying any such possibility. Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in his recent two speeches in Islamabad and Multan has already categorically rejected any such possibility.

However, a JUIF member and a backbencher from the ruling PML-N told this scribe that PPP was dragging its feet on the delimitation bill in Senate, which might be because of some on-going negotiations. “If the Bill is not passed, the interim government could be stretched for time unlimited in case of a petition in Supreme Court preying for a stay on general elections till the time review of census preliminary results is completed”, a PML-N member told.

“Now couple this with the fact that the ruling PML-N has not been able to fulfil the quorum in the House since last many sittings. This is very clear that there are fissures within the party, which would be exploited by the non-democratic forces sooner or later”, said a third time member of the National Assembly.

Another senior member from PML-N, however, sounded unbothered about all these rumours and said, “our party is intact and those who were initially claiming that 65 of our members were ready to resign and jump the ship, had to come down to 45. Failing which, they brought the number down to 30, which came further down after the post-Faizabad demonstrations at Lahore when it was announced that 15 PML-N members have resigned. So far, the office of the speaker NA has received only one resignation”.

Talking about the quorum, another senior member from PML-N said that his party had been able to bring almost full House whenever there was utmost need to do so. “Start from the election of the PM Abbasi to the recent amendment in the Election Bill 2017, we have proven that our party is intact with no defections in the offing”, he said.

Published in Daily Times, December 19^th 2017.