Opposition’s Protest Halts Proceedings of Balochistan Assembly

ISLAMABAD, April 2, 2019: The Balochistan Assembly’s proceeding remained suspended for an hour and 53 minutes (48 percent of the sitting) due to absence of the Speaker amid Opposition’s protest, says Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet on Tuesday.

Following are key observations of the House proceeding during last (fourth) sitting of the tenth session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for three hours and 54 minutes while the proceedings remained suspended for an hour and 53 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1706 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the sitting for 49 minutes while the rest of the proceeding was chaired by the Deputy Speaker.
• The Leader of the House attended the proceedings for an hour and 12 minutes.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 14 MPAs (21%) were present at the outset while 25 (38%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The Parliamentary Leaders of MMAP, PkMAP, BNP-M, ANP and BAP attended the proceeding.
• As many as two out of three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output

• Moved by an ANP lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution for supply of natural gas to Tehsil Chamman, Qila Abdullah and Gulstan. Two members spoke on this resolution for three minutes.
• Moved by a BAP lawmaker, the House adopted another resolution to resume construction work on a road in district Chaghi. Two lawmakers debated it for as many minutes.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not hold Question Hour due to the protest by opposition parties.
• The House did not initiate debate on two identical Adjournment Motions (AMs) regarding firing incident on a check post of Balochistan Levies in District Ziarat. Both AMs were admitted for discussion during first sitting on March 25, 2019.
• A Zero Hour notice by a PkMAP lawmaker regarding robberies at shops in Pushtunabad, Quetta remained unaddressed.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as 11 lawmakers spoke on Points of Order (POs) consuming an hour and 37 minutes of the proceeding.
• The Opposition lawmakers walked out of the House for four minutes against the decision of the Chair who declined to constitute a committee to investigate distribution of funds among districts. Later, they protested for 16 minutes in the House on the same issue following which the Chair left the House at 1755 hours and returned at 1948 hours.
• An ANP lawmaker walked out of the House for eleven minutes over disruption of the House Business by the opposition lawmakers.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ 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.

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