Balochistan Assembly Lacks Quorum to Take up Agenda

ISLAMABAD, March 22, 2018: The Balochistan Assembly did not take up any agenda item on Thursday due to lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in Daily Factsheet.

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

 Members’ Participation 

  • The Balochistan Assembly met for 29 minutes.
  • The sitting started at 1633 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
  • A member of Panel of Chairpersons chaired the entire sitting.
  • The Chief Minister did not attend the sitting.
  • The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
  • As many as 23 lawmakers (35%) were present at the outset and 12 (18%) at the adjournment of sitting.
  • The parliamentary leaders of MWM, PkMAP and PML were present during the proceedings.
  • One minority member attended the sitting.

Output

  • The House did not take up the resolutions appearing on Orders of the Day.

Representation and Responsiveness

  • The House did not observe question hour while an adjournment motion was not taken up.

Order and Institutionalization

  • A PkMAP lawmaker identified the quorum immediately after the Quran recitation following which the Chair ordered the bell to be rung for five minutes. She suspended the proceedings but the quorum was incomplete on resumption of the proceedings at 1702 hours and the sitting was adjourned.

 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.