- No reason for government to celebrate either
One can understand the frustration. Despite a majority of 64 to 36 in the Senate the opposition failed to get 53 votes needed to remove Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani. What added to its anger is that moments before the secret ballot 61 Senators supported the resolution to unseat the Chairman. While those who betrayed did not violate any rule, their act was highly reprehensible from the moral point of view. The secret ballot in a no-confidence move against the Senate chairman should have been replaced with open vote, but was allowed to remain a part of the rules of procedure of the Senate due to the short-sightedness of the political leaders. Similarly, Article 62(1-f) of the constitution was retained because each of the two major parties wanted to use it, when needed, against the other. The same motive was behind their failure to curb the arbitrary powers granted to the NAB chief. A number of retrogressive provisions still remain in the Constitution and the statute book, but no party is willing to remove them till these start hurting them.
As long as legislators spend tens of millions of rupees to win their seats, betrayals cannot be stopped. A man spending crores of rupees in his campaign, is likely to retrieve the investment along with profit through corruption. This explains why legislators insist on getting development funds which should instead go to the local bodies. The establishment knows this but, instead of trying to stop the practice, keeps tabs on those involved in corruption. The information is used whenever needed, to pressurise the tainted MPs to do the establishment’s bidding. Instead of curbing the malpractice, the PPP and PML-N have in the past welcomed the defectors back. Unless strict laws are made and fully enforced to radically bring down election expenses, corruption among politicians cannot be eradicated while defections will also continue.
The PTI leaders should draw the right lessons from the failure of the no-confidence move. Horse trading has already sullied the PM’s image as a clean man. There is a clear message for him now that any crucial display of independence could be fatal to a party ruling with a wafer-thin majority.