Balochistan Assembly Demands 20 Additional Seats

ISLAMABAD, March 17, 2018: The Balochistan Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on Saturday demanding an addition of 20 seats in the provincial assembly, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the proceedings during the second sitting of the Assembly’s 50^th session:

 Members’ Participation 

• The Balochistan Assembly met for three hours.
• The sitting started at 1627 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as seven lawmakers (11%) were present at the outset and 13 (20%) at the adjournment of sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of NP, PkMAP, MWM and ANP were present during the proceedings.
• As many as two minority members attended the sitting.

Output

• The House unanimously adopted a resolution recommending the provincial government to approach the federal government and ask it to review the fresh delimitation of constituencies and add 20 seats in the provincial assembly in light of the increasing population of the province. As many as 17 lawmakers debated the resolution for two and a half hours.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House admitted a PkMAP lawmaker’s Adjournment Motion for discussion on March 20, 2018. The AM seeks discussion regarding the registration of police case against speakers of a public rally arranged by Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement in Quetta.
• The House did not take up a Call Attention Notice included in the agenda.

Order and Institutionalization

• The lawmakers spoke on seven points of order consuming 15 minutes of the proceedings.
• A PkMAP lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1728 hours; however, it was completed two minutes later.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of Members was not made public.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.

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