Over to you, ECP

ISLAMABAD

Tayyab Hussain

Despite the optimism and long parleys held over the last three days, the eight-member parliamentary committee tasked with naming the caretaker prime minister expired their mandated time on Friday without arriving at a decision, thus dropping the crucial matter in the Election Commission of Pakistan’s lap.

The ECP now has to make a decision by Sunday.

A source in the PML-N told Pakistan Today that the PML-N leadership had emerged successful in its bid to forward the matter to the ECP.

“We wanted to gain two objectives through this plan. Since we are going to polls, we wanted to remove the impression of a deal or “Muk-Muka” between the PPP and the PML-N by not evolving consensus, as it would have provided PTI chief Imran Khan another opportunity to label consensus as a deal. Moreover, we hope that the ECP would also nominate a neutral person to the post. So this would bring us a win-win situation,” a PML-N leader said.

The daylong sessions exposed the fact that the team from the opposition side was powerless and hence time and again the PML-N leaders sought permission from the committee time to seek fresh directions from their leadership, but to no avail.

The first break came when PML-N members sought a break to seek fresh directions from their leadership.

However, when the meeting started after a delay of over five hours, PML-N leaders Pervaiz Rasheed and Saad Rafique again sought a break and contacted their leadership by phone and sought some directions.

Despite the fresh directions, no headway could be made – reflecting the fact that the PML-N leadership did not want consensus over the nominees in the first place, though there were chances of a consensus over the name of Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid or Dr Ishrat Hussain.

It was Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Syed Khursheed Shah who raised objection to the PML-N’s nominee Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid for being a PCO judge, while the PML-N members raised objection over Dr Ishrat Hussain, stating that his brother-in-law was very close to President Asif Ali Zardari.

Both sides could not evolve consensus in the first marathon session that started at 11am and was discontinued after the N-leaguers sought a break.

“We have failed to evolve consensus and we accept our failure. The politicians have failed and now the ECP would decide the matter,” Farooq H Naik said following the second session of the meeting.

He said there was a need to further amend the constitution as the committee was bound to discuss the nominations made by the leader of the House and leader of the opposition and it could not go beyond its mandate.

Syed Khursheed Shah said since this was the first time after 18thand 19th constitutional amendments that the committee was tasked to decide the matter of the caretaker PM, it could not come to the expectations of the nation.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain expressed his anger over the failure of the committee to decide the matter, saying politicians had failed to come up to the expectations of the nation.

The PML-N leaders, however, made a failed attempt to remove the impression of the failure of the political elites.

“This is not a failure of any side. The committee held its deliberations in a cordial atmosphere and we are happy that we tried to reach a consensus,” Saad Rafique said.

He added that it would be wrong to term the talks as a failure and said that all the four individuals nominated were respectable. He said the scope of the committee was limited and hence it could not resolve the matter in time.

Earlier, Chaudhry Shujaat said it would be quite disappointing if the decision was taken out of the hands of the politicians.

The committee on Friday nominated Sardar Mohammad Yaqub Nasir as the chair in wake of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s refusal on the plea that he did not want to head a committee that was bent upon referring a political matter to non-political personalities.

Shah had said that rules had been laid down and they all agreed in principle not to nominate any PCO judge for the slot of caretaker prime minister.

Shah had also voiced strong reservation over the ECP’s statement, which was seconded by his colleagues Farooq H Naik and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

He said that the commission should not have given the statement at this juncture when the issue was under consideration, adding that it was politicians that empowered the commission; hence all institutions must remain in their constitutional ambit.