- The Opposition finds itself pressed to the wall
The National Assembly saw opposition members engage in strenuous protests on Friday before the Speaker was obliged to adjourn a House which he could no longer control. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari continued to speak outside the National Assembly, where he explained to the press that his letter to the speaker NA demanding production orders of Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar had been completely ignored. He was joined, not unexpectedly, by the PML-N’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, but unexpectedly Akhtar Mengal of the BNP (Mengal). Mengal had on Wednesday already spoken in support of the two MNAs, who belong to the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, though sitting as opposition independents. The issue of Mr Bhutto Zardari’s appearance before NAB Rawalpindi, or rather the police attack on the PPP workers trying to protest it, was also raised, as was that of the reference against Mr Justice Faez Isa of the Supreme Court and a Sindh High Court judge. Mr Abbasi presided over a party meeting later which decided to protest the references in Parliament. He also raised the issue of the publication in the press of the material against the judges, and how that material reached them, particularly, who was responsible for their leakage.
The accumulation of issues has meant that the opposition is being driven even closer, as the government throws up one cause after another. It is to be noted that the opposition’s demand for formation of parliamentary committees to probe the recent controversy surrounding NAB chairman and the incident involving PTM MNAs’ are valid and the government did not need to be obdurate. It still seems far away from the realisation that cooperation with the opposition is the only viable option it has. By continuously pushing the opposition against the wall inside parliament by ignoring their valid concerns and outside parliament by piling on cases against them, the government remains unable to form any sort of consensus. If the opposition makes good on their call to take to the streets in the coming weeks then the PTI will have an entirely new mess to contend with.
