Photo courtesy PPP Media Cell
PPP and PMLN leaders say NA Speaker Asad Qaiser committed ‘treason’ by violating constitutional deadline for convening requisitioned session of Lower House
Leaders of Pakistan’s main opposition parties—the PPP and the PMLN—on Sunday suggested that National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser should be tried under Article 6 (treason) of the Constitution for failing to convene within 14 days of its requisition a session of the Lower House to take up the no-confidence resolution against Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Addressing a press conference, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari hoped the Supreme Court would take notice of the speaker’s violation of the Constitution, adding it would prove there was “at least one institution” in the country that sought to protect the Constitution, democracy and right of vote of lawmakers. Stressing that he hoped the apex court would “not facilitate this government on its unconstitutional step” of delaying the no-confidence vote, he said that he hoped it would make a constitutional decision and not a political one.
“We appreciate how the Supreme Court sent a message of standing with the law and Constitution, even on a weekend,” he said, referring to the top court taking up a petition filed by the Supreme Court Bar Association during which the court had reprimanded the government over an assault on Sindh House by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). “This coward captain [P.M. Imran Khan] is running away from the vote of no-confidence. He is escaping to the extent that he has made the speaker abrogate the Constitution,” he claimed.
Speaker Asad Qaiser on Sunday issued a notification saying that because there was “no suitable building” in Islamabad to convene the requisitioned session on March 21—14 days after the opposition filed the requisition on March 8—it would be convened after the OIC conference on March 25. This is in direct violation of Article 54 of the Constitution.
In a separate press conference, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Senior Vice-President Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also Qaiser and the prime minister of violating the Constitution and committing treason under Article 6. Describing the treason clause as a “serious matter,” he said anyone who interfered in the democratic process of a no-trust move was committing “treason.” Similarly, in a statement, PMLN Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said that if the speaker did not convene the NA session before March 22, he had violated the Constitution and was liable to be punished under Article 6.
Religion ‘card’
Both opposition parties also accused the prime minister for using the “religion card” in an effort to save his government, as well as alleging that the party had launched an anti-Army campaign on social media to make the institution’s “neutrality” a source of controversy. PMLN Secretary Seneral Ahsan Iqbal claimed Khan was “using” religion to try and cover up his “dirty politics and incompetence.”
Similarly, Bhutto-Zardari advised Khan against using ‘Riyasat-e-Madina’ as a political slogan. “You [P.M. Khan] are foreign-sponsored and foreign-funded agent who has been planted in our system,” he claimed, as he criticized the government’s foreign policy, adding that Khan had “adopted” the foreign policy of India, as there was no difference between the two right now.
The PPP chairman alleged that the prime minister and the PTI’s social media team had launched a “propaganda campaign” against an institution to pressure it into abandoning neutrality. “While the media is talking about a neutral environment, Imran and his social media team are trying to spread propaganda that institutions cannot be neutral,” he said, adding that it was every Pakistani’s responsibility to demand that every institution work within the domain drawn by the law and Constitution.
Bhutto-Zardari also regretted that the prime minister had equated ‘neutral’ with animals. “Our efforts have always been for neutrality. The P.M., his social media team and ministers are making desperate attempts to tarnish neutrality. We condemn this,” he said.
While neither the premier, nor the PPP chairman, named any institution, it is widely perceived that Khan’s rubbishing of “neutrality” was a reference to the opposition’s claims of Pakistan’s security establishment adopting a “neutral” position on the no-confidence vote.