Bilawal questions govt’s ability to legislate on COAS’s tenure in 6 months

aMUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday cast doubt on the federal government’s ability to legislate on the army chief’s extension within the six-month timeframe granted by the Supreme Court, Geo News reported.

The apex court, earlier this week, allowed the government conditional permission to extend Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s tenure by six months, provided it legislates on the matter during the given time period.

Bilawal on Saturday questioned how the government would be able to legislate on such an important matter when it was not able to pass any laws during its first year in power. “The entire government, its ministers and the prime minister could not draft a single notification in three months,” the PPP chairperson said during his speech at his party’s 52nd Youm-e-Tasees in Muzaffarabad. “Now the matter of the army chief’s extension will be brought to the parliament.”

“The people who were not able to get even a single law passed during their one year … how will they be able to create consensus on such an important piece of legislation within six months?” he asked.

Furthermore, Bilawal assailed the government on a variety of issues, ranging from inflation to targeting of opposition parties and suppression of media. Bilawal also credited his father and former president Asif Ali Zardari for initiating the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and warned the government that his party would not allow them to make the multi-billion project “controversial”.