Daily Times

Islamabad: Opposition threatened to hold a “sit-in” in the lower house if the resolution calling for a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan was not tabled by Monday, disrupting an OIC summit set for that day. PPP and PDM had filed the no-trust motion against the premier with the NA Secretariat on March 8.

One set of paperwork sought to requisition the NA, which was not in session at the time, while another sought a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. A session of the National Assembly can be requested by at least 25% of the members, and the speaker has up to 14 days to convene it. Following the National Assembly’s session, the secretary must distribute a notice for a vote of no confidence, which must be moved the next working day. The regulations provide that a resolution cannot be voted on for three days or more after it is moved.

So the speaker must convene the lower house by March 22, and the vote on the no-confidence resolution must occur within three to seven days of the convening. However, PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari claimed today that he had received allegations that the NA speaker intended to violate the Constitution, laws, and house rules.

In an interview with the media in Islamabad, Bilawal said the law and norms required the speaker to convene a session on the no-confidence motion submitted against the prime minister by Monday. The speaker’s non-democratic mindset prevents him from moving the no-confidence motion by Monday, therefore he advised his party and other opposition parties not to leave the chamber. “Then we’ll see how you hold your OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) meeting,” he said.

“If they threaten us by not respecting the law, the Constitution, and the NA norms, then we will continue to sit on that floor till we are given our right,” Bilawal said. Added he “We want the OIC [summit]. The whole country wants it. But it can only happen properly if the speaker plays his part.”

Bilawal advised him not to join the PTI and to consider the country’s democracy and the OIC. “There would be no issues for the OIC and we would have no complaints if he started the no-confidence proceedings on Monday,” he said. The PML-N President and Leader of the Opposition in the National Parliament agreed with Bilawal and said that if the speaker does not call the session within the prescribed time and utilises “delaying tactics”, a sit-in in the assembly hall will be required.

Those attending the OIC summit are the nation’s guests, he stated “But you cannot break the law or the Constitution in the name of this [OIC meeting]. Then we will sit-in.”