ISLAMABAD: Despite being stung by the Supreme Court, the ruling coalition and opposition in the National Assembly seemed stalled by a deadlock on Monday on a constitution amendment bill seeking to validate more than two dozen post-Eighteenth Amendment by-elections.
Negotiators of the two sides failed to reach an agreement after a three-hour meeting that lasted until late at night, but they said they had agreed to meet again on Tuesday evening as the Constitution (Twentieth Amendment) Bill seemed destined to wait until Wednesday, when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani too will have returned from a two-day official visit to Qatar.
The original two-clause draft, already approved by a house stranding committee, only sought to rectify an alleged flaw in by-elections to 28 seats of both houses of parliament and provincial assemblies that cropped up before the Supreme Court during the hearing of another case on the ground that the votes were held when the Election Commission was not complete.
But the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N had made acceptance of its own amendments to ensure independence of the Election Commission and guarantees about the independence of a caretaker set-up that must oversee a general election as conditions for supporting the bill.
The government had seemed agreeable to extending the tenure of four members of the Election Commission to five years — like that of the chief election commissioner — but the two sides failed to resolve differences between them on the mode of guaranteeing about the independence of the caretaker set-up.
Hours after a Supreme Court bench ordered suspension of the 28 lawmakers elected in the by-elections – most of them belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party and PML-N – until the validating amendment is made, bill was deferred for the fourth consecutive sitting of the National Assembly without citing any reason after the house met after a two-day weekend.
But after the house was adjourned until 10.30am on Tuesday, the negotiators of the two sides met behind closed doors at the chambers of opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who led the opposition side with PPP chief whip Khurshid Ahmed Shah leading his side along with Senator Raza Rabbani, Water and Power Minister Naveed Qamar and former federal minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.
On the opposition side, Chaudhry Nisar was assisted by PML-N senator Ishaq Dar and MNA Khawaja Mohamamd Asif, while Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PPP-S leader Aftab Ahmed Sherpao represented their own parties.
Mr Khurshid Shah, who is also the religious affairs minister, told reporters after the meeting that the government had accepted most of demands of what he called “combined opposition”, while Chaudhry Nisar reported a deadlock on guarantees about the caretaker set-up.
The ruling coalition has been saying in the past that it has two-thirds majorities in both the 342-seat National Assembly and the 100-seat Senate required to pass an amendment to the Constitution but would prefer a consensus with the opposition as was done in the unanimous passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments.
However, these claims were put to a practical test, and Chaudhry Nisar said after the meeting that things might become very difficult for the coalition to have a two-thirds majority after suspension of its lawmakers from both the lower and upper houses.
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Tue, 7 Feb 2012
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Pakistan economy weakening: Moody’s
KARACHI, Feb 6: Moody’s Investors Service said in its annual report that Pakistan’s B3 rating reflects the country’s low economic, institutional and government financial strengths, and its high susceptibility to event risk.
”The rating outlook is stable, although pressures on the balance of payments have re-emerged,” said a release issued by the Moody’s on Monday.
The broad policy framework has not been robust enough to ensure support from donors and creditors, or to effectively contain macroeconomic imbalances, which have arisen since the global financial crisis in 2008, said the report.
Moody’s made its assessment in its latest analysis of Pakistan, and which assesses the country according to four factors: economic strength, which is characterised as ‘low’; institutional strength, ‘low’; government financial strength, ‘low’; and susceptibility to event risk, ‘high’.
Pakistan’s ‘low’ economic strength reflects its relatively weak economic growth trend since the 2008 global financial crisis, and which has also been constrained by policy-framework and structural weaknesses.
Macroeconomic imbalances were manifest in a chronically high level of inflation and renewed pressures on the payments position in the second half of 2011, said the report.
With the second factor, the Moody’s report says that Pakistan’s ‘low’ institutional strength is partly a reflection of the factious character of politics in Pakistan.
Tensions between the civilian government and military pose a threat to political stability. Pakistan’s ‘low’ government financial strength, the third factor, reflects the presence of a high debt burden and very large refinancing requirements.
The cost of the 2010 floods, the delay in the introduction of the Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST), and faltering donor support further increased pressure on government finances.
In terms of the country’s “High” Susceptibility to event risk, the fourth factor, Moody’s looks at political risk including domestic and geopolitical threats economic and banking system risks.
The report says that the recent deterioration in Pakistan’s relations with the US and the end of the IMF programme remove support to the external balance of payments.
“Although official foreign exchange reserves presently remain adequate, their decline since mid-2011 underscores that the risk of a currency crisis remains high,” said the report.
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MOHAMMED SALEEM MANSOORI
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