PML-N must attend to the grouse
In a house dominated by the PML-N’s, there has been a closing of ranks between the PPP and the PTI, with Jamaat e Islami in tow. What has brought these otherwise divergent political forces close is the one serious grouse: making the PML-N, more specifically the prime minister, take the houses of parliament slightly more seriously than he and his cabinet have so far been. The point is too well known to be overstressed here, but similar is the complaint from the senate, with the majority of the upper house for the last one week abandoning the august chamber to hold their roadshow outside it as a mark of protest. There has been little attempt on the part of the treasury to resolve the issue with the protesting senators – most of whom are honourable people. Now the NA is up in arms and the two leading opposition parties are in consonance that the PM should make an appearance in the house to brief it on his United States visit as well as the talks that it is still pursuing with the TTP despite the latter’s publicly spurning it following the election of a sworn enemy of the state as its chieftain.
The legislators are right. The track record of the PM and his cabinet in taking both houses of the parliament along is rather abysmal. In a parliamentary democracy the parliament is the sovereign. And here it is being treated as a mere accessory to land the high office, and then forgetting about it, only coming back to it at ceremonial occasions – such as the election of hand-picked non-entity as the head of the state. This is not the done thing. Even in a presidential form of government, such as the US, President Obama for instance has more interaction with the congressmen than the current PM’s with the parliamentarians. Here the PML-N would be well advised to take a leaf out of the PPP prime ministers’ book. In spite of their other shortcomings, both houses of parliament were never denied their frequent presence.
This is rather bizarre that the forum with the greatest measure of sanctity in a democracy is being treated with such wanton disregard for a government that otherwise lays so much store in consensus. It is about time the PML-N’s leadership mended its fences with the parliamentarians or risk discrediting of the entire system in public perception.
