Govt accused of sabotaging consensus on electoral reforms

ISLAMABAD: Senate Committee on Parliamentary Affairs Chairman Taj Haider has accused the government of sabotaging the consensus reached on electoral reforms.

“All our efforts to forge understanding and consensus on two electoral reforms bills under consideration in the Standing Committee of the Senate on Parliamentary Affairs went in vain when a responsible minister who was also a member of the committee used abusive language and laid a barrage of unfounded charges against the Election Commission of Pakistan,” Taj said, adding that during the last three months, the members of the standing committee had reached consensus on almost all clauses of the first bill while on the second bill, members from both sides gave workable proposals to introduce reliable technology step by step in the electoral process and to find ways to give representation to overseas Pakistanis in the national parliament.

He said that on the last day of the time period allotted to the standing committee to submit its recommendations, ECP guests walked out and then the government side too surprisingly chose to walk out of the standing committee meeting. “Members who chose to stay back and continue the meeting of the standing committee deserve to be congratulated on their achievement,” he said.

He said the ministers once again repeated their threat of getting the bills passed in the joint session of the parliament. He said the Senate, most unfairly under the cover of Article 70 (3) of the Constitution, lost its constitutional right to consider more than 20 bills that had been bulldozed through the National Assembly in half an hour.

He said the most unwise and self-destructive actions of this government have already caused unbearable miseries for the people of Pakistan. “They have tried to destroy everything that the people of Pakistan and their democratic leadership had built through unparalleled sacrifices,” he said.