Despite serious differences: PPP, PML-N team up against government in Senate

ISLAMABAD: Despite their serious differences, the two principal opposition forces – the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) – will team up to vote for a resolution rejecting a presidential ordinance relating to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in the Senate.

PPP parliamentary leader Sherry Rehman submitted the resolution disapproving of the ordinance and said her party cannot let the government undermine the HEC’s autonomy. According to the resolution, making an overnight change in the HEC chairman’s term from four years to two is unacceptable.

“We will undoubtedly vote for the disapproval of the HEC ordinance,” PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal told The News when contacted. “The moment the ordinance was promulgated a few weeks back, we condemned it severely and demanded its withdrawal. When the government has not paid any heed to our calls, we are going to reject the ordinance through the disapproving resolution.”

He believed that the PML-N has also moved a similar resolution in the Senate. He said that reducing the HEC chief’s tenure was undesirable and untenable as the holder of such a very important position can’t do much in such short tenure. Secondly, he said, giving the ordinance retrospective effect was illegal and unconstitutional.

“Being a regulator, the HEC can’t be made subordinate to the education ministry. It has to work independently. What has been done to the HEC will play havoc with higher education and the economy,” Ahsan Iqbal said.

Sherry Rehman asked the government why such ordinances were not being put before parliament for discussion. The PPP would not let the government bypass the legislature and would not allow an ambush on the HEC’s autonomy. Instead of investing in education to ensure Pakistan’s future, the government has in fact cut down the HEC’s budget, she said, adding that their priorities are so skewed that they have not been able to even allocate a fixed percentage of the GDP to higher education.

She said it was shocking that the budget allocations for the HEC have not kept pace with the growing needs of the sector. Instead, the government is after this reputable state institution and is trying to destroy it, she said.

This will be the second time after the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was rocked by differences between the PPP and PML-N/Jamiat-eUlema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) over the nomination of the leader of the opposition in the Senate that not only the two major political parties but all the constituents of the multi-party opposition alliance will be joining hands against the HEC ordinance. Together, the opposition parties are in a majority in view of their numerical strength in the upper house of parliament. Their current cooperation showed that they will be supporting each other’s moves in the Senate on an issue-to-issue basis.

Fearing that the HEC ordinance will be shot down by the opposition parties, the government has not so far tabled it in the Senate. Earlier on April 5, the PML-N and PPP had collaborated and passed a resolution despite stiff opposition by the ruling coalition.

It said in order to cope with the global Covid-19 pandemic, all the countries of the world were striving to divert resources for the free vaccination of their people against the coronavirus while the Pakistan government had miserably failed to vaccinate the general public and had only prioritized the vaccination of senior citizens and frontline health workers in the country.

The government had allowed the import of the Russian-made anti-corona Sputnik vaccine by private firms and had fixed the price at Rs 12,200 for two doses as against the international market price of Rs1,500. Amid the current economic crunch in Pakistan caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not possible for the general public to afford the exorbitant price of the anti-corona vaccine, something that is in violation of article 38 of the Constitution.

The House urged the government to provide either free of cost anti-corona vaccines to the general public or according to the original international market price, the resolution said.