Balochistan Assembly Prorogued without Transacting Regular Business

ISLAMABAD, October 18, 2019: The 16^th session of Balochistan Assembly was prorogued sine die on Friday leaving most of the regular business unaddressed due to lack of quorum, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during last (fifth) sitting of the 16^th session:

 Members’ Participation

• The House met for two hours and 54 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1608 hours against the scheduled time of 1500 hours.
• The Speaker did not attend the proceedings.
• The Deputy Speaker presided over the sitting for an hour and 32 minutes while rest of the sitting was chaired by a Member of Panel of Chairpersons.
• The Leader of the House did not attend the proceedings.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 16 MPAs (25%) were present at the outset and 11(17%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of MMAP, BNP-A, BNP-M and PkMAP attended the proceedings.
• All three minority lawmakers were absent.

Output

• Moved by a BNP-M lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution for provision of electricity to all villages of the province. Two lawmakers spoke on it for 16 minutes.
• The House did not consider three resolutions, two reports of as many Standing Committees, one statutory report and an Adjournment Motion.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House took up six out of nine starred questions while the lawmakers asked eight supplementary questions as well.
• The Minister for Social Welfare responded a Call Attention Notice (CAN) regarding increasing trend of drug use in public.
• Another CAN regarding construction of a road was responded to by the Finance Minister.

Order and Institutionalization

• Fifteen lawmakers spoke on Points of Order for an hour and 23 minutes.
• An MMAP lawmaker pointed out the quorum at 1900 hours which led to the early adjournment of sitting after counting.
• An ANP lawmaker staged a walkout for 26 minutes over his reservations against local media.
• The House condemned the Vice Chancellor Balochistan University over harassment charges against him.
• The session was prorogued sine die.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Attendance of the lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

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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