ISLAMABAD, February 25, 2020: The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) was adjourned early on Tuesday without addressing questions and Call Attention Notices included in the agenda due to protest by the opposition parties in the House for the fifth consecutive day, observes Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in the Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceedings during fifth sitting of the 11^th session:

Members’ Participation

• The Assembly met for 23 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1527 hours against the scheduled time of 1400 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leaders of the House and the Opposition did not attend the sitting.
• As many as 50 (34%) legislators were present at the start and 60 (41%) at the end of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP, PML-N, PPPP and BAP attended the sitting.
• All four minority members were present in the sitting.

Output

• Moved by the Provincial Minister for Law, the House passed three government bills including the KP Charities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, the Kaghan Development Authority Bill, 2020 and the National Disaster Management (KP Amendment) Bill, 2020.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not address the questions and Call Attention Notices included in the agenda due to the protest of the opposition.

Order and Institutionalization

• The opposition protested during the proceedings against the government’s attitude towards the business of the House. They expressed their reservation about abrupt prorogation of the previous session.
• The Chair adjourned the House till March 2, 2020 (Monday) at 1400 hours.

 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 KP Assembly proceeding conducted by United Rural Development Organization (URDO) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted