ISLAMABAD, April 23, 2022: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan did not take up its regular agenda on Saturday and was adjourned 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 the seventh sitting of 52nd session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for 36 minutes.
• The sitting started at 04:35 pm against the scheduled time of 02:30 pm.
• A member of panel of chairpersons presided over the entire proceedings in the absence of speaker and the deputy speaker.
• The leaders of the house (chief minister) and the opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as two (three percent) legislators were present at the start and four (six percent) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leader of PkMAP attended the sitting.
• One out of three minority members was present.

 Output

• The House did not consider three government bills due to the early adjournment of the sitting.

Order and Institutionalization

• A BNP-M lawmaker spoke on a point of order for 21 minutes which was related to political development in the country and issues of Balochistan.
• A lawmaker belonging to ANP pointed out the quorum at 04:59 pm following which the Chair ordered the bells to be rung for five minutes. However, the counting was made at 05:11 pm and the quorum was found incomplete.
• The House was adjourned to meet again on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 02:30 pm.

Transparency

• ‘List of Business’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of 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