Pakistan: Making of history

The Frontier Post

This must be a matter of pride for the 180 million people of Pakistan that their 13th National Assembly set a record for completing its mandatory 650 sittings in five years on Tuesday, four days ahead of the five-year tenure. This is also something unusual for the national Parliament to have successfully avoided unconstitutional interventions it has witnessed at least four times since 1958 leaving scars which still are posing problems in democratic dispensation and a smooth political process. The outgoing NA, which is set to be dissolved on Saturday, held its first session on March 17, 2008 when the members took oath. In its 650 sittings, the lower house passed 126 bills including some important legislation which called for the rights for women and children, reinstatement of sacked employees and election laws. But restoration of the basic framework of 1973 Constitution's of federal parliamentary democracy through the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth constitutional amendments, remains its most distinguished achievements. This process saw many powers of the president, particularly that of dissolving the National Assembly, returning to parliament to set a very healthy democratic tradition. Another hallmark of the Parliament was to resolve the long standing question of provincial autonomy and settling the outstanding issue of provincial royalties. The National Assembly also adopted 80 resolutions on various issues of national and international importance. These resolutions addressed issues like drone attacks, killing of polio workers, targeting the Christian community at Gojra and Lahore's Badami Bagh, emancipating women from domestic violence and their harassment at workplace and public places and transport to name a few. The National Assembly held in-camera sessions in which the country's top army generals briefed parliamentarians on the Abbottabad Operation in which US Navy SEALs killed al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden. Another milestone the parliament achieved was the formulating a national security policy in October 2008 after a two-week long joint sitting in which top military and civil intelligence officers gave an in-camera briefing. The President of Pakistan addressed the joint sitting of parliament for a record five times and thus fulfilled a constitutional obligation. What the Parliament could not achieve during its tenure was curbing terrorism mainly because there was a lack of coordination between and among various intelligence agencies. The menace of militancy and extremism not only persists but has now expanded to many other territories, especially FATA. It has already taken a heavy toll of national life. It could also not overcome power and gas shortage, a crisis inherited from the predecessor Musharraf regime. Besides, it failed to legislate for the much touted National Accountability Commission to replace the notorious National Accountability Bureau as an institutionalized process of accountability. The Parliament also presided over staggering economic decline and worsening security over the last five years. Parliament could also not succeed in carving out the Bahawalpur Janoobi Punjab province, the fifth federal unit of Pakistan though the Senate approved the bill by a two-thirds majority. The National Assembly was addressed twice by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and once by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. It also witnessed two prime ministers, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf. It lost eight members, including the minister for minorities affairs Shahbaz Bhatti who was murdered in firing incident in Islamabad. Other members who lost their lives during the five-year tenure include Merhun Nisa Afridi, Taj Muhammad Jamali, Fauzia Wahab, Azim Daultana, JamYousuf, Niaz Muhammad Khan and Abdul Mateen Khan. The resounding success of Parliament and completing its term for the first time may be attributed to the wheeling dealing abilities of President Asif Ali Zardari's to keep the coalition intact, the army chief of staff's determination to keep himself and his men out of politics and the opposition's unwillingness to force early elections. So far so good, but the Parliament has left the all-important question of continuity of establishing a strong democracy to the next government. Although, the president has not given dates for the next parliamentary elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan has proposed these might be held between May 6 and 9. The coming elections are vital for the country for certain extraneous reasons also; one of being the future of this region after United States completes pull-out from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.