Business Recorder editorial Nov 21, 2017

Elections 2018 in the doldrums The priorities of our politicians sometimes leave one scratching one’s head. The PPP pulled out all the stops to have its bill to undo the clause in the Elections Act 2017 that allowed disqualified former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to be reinstated as party head of the ruling PML-N passed by the National Assembly (NA). The PTI and some other opposition parties were also on board. That the venture was quixotic was written not in the stars but in the numbers. The PML-N enjoys a clear majority in the NA, unlike its lack of a majority in the Senate. It was therefore a likely conclusion that the PML-N would be able to defeat the bill. And so it did on November 21, 2017, when the issue came to a vote in the NA, by a healthy majority of 163 to 98. Not that the treasury too did not bend its back to ensure this result. Nawaz Sharif had tasked NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and some other party stalwarts to ensure the party’s MNAs turned up en masse to ensure the bill was killed. The backdrop to this concerted mobilisation drive were the reports last week at the passing of the 24th constitutional amendment by the NA. The amendment is necessary for the delimitation of constituencies according to the provisional results of Census 2017. Not much of a problem was anticipated in the passing of the amendment since it had been approved by the Council of Common Interests (one of the PPP’s conditions for supporting it) and garnered the consensus of all the parliamentary parties. The amendment was indeed passed by the NA but then reports appeared that around 20 PML-N MNAs claimed they had been receiving calls from unknown numbers warning them not to attend the session last Thursday (November 16, 2017). Some PML-N leaders feared that a few MNAs were deliberately staying away, providing a source of embarrassment for the treasury benches. While Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called a parliamentary party meeting before the crucial November 21 session, the PPP’s Khursheed Shah too did not lag behind in this mobilisation race. However, at the end of the day, sheer weight of numbers on the treasury side proved too much for the heroes of the opposition despite their fiery speeches in reply to even more fiery rhetoric from government ministers before a voice vote was called on the bill. Not satisfied, the opposition insisted on a division. The result was a resounding victory for the government, leaving the opposition to lick its wounds. This narrative notwithstanding, the priorities of politicians with which this editorial began now need reflection. While so much sweat and effort was being expended by the opposition in the NA on unseating Nawaz Sharif as PML-N chief, the upper house seemed abandoned and bereft of the necessary numbers to pass the 24th constitutional amendment, the last necessary act to allow the Election Commission of Pakistan to get on with the (increasingly tight because of the delays) onerous task of delimitation to pave the way for general elections on time next year. As noted above, the government lacks a majority in the Senate. Hence it is dependent on the cooperation of the opposition to pass any constitutional amendment. Thin attendance and sometimes even lack of quorum forced a deferment of consideration of the amendment for three days on November 20. Now that the opposition has staked so much on its bill in the NA and lost, perhaps it would not be unreasonable to expect it to buckle down to the task of passing the amendment in the Senate in line with the consensus that exists on it. The stakes for the entire political class in this matter could not be higher. Any further delay could throw the schedule for Elections 2018 out of kilter, with unforeseeable consequences. Parliamentary democracy is the bread and butter of the entire political class irrespective of divisions on any other issue. It is therefore imperative for their interests as much as the interests of the country as a whole for Elections 2018 to be held on time. The opposition must now rise to the task without allowing its defeat in the NA to affect the consensus on the amendment.