ISLAMABAD: The PTI has declared demonstrations against the 26th Constitutional Amendment and chastised the government for its “ulterior motives” behind the amendment.
The PTI chairman had earlier on Sunday stated that his party had “no objections” to the final draft but would not vote for it in parliament. This was in sharp contrast to a statement released by a party spokesperson after the Senate passed the amendments with four votes against the bill cast by PTI and its allies.
Following what was likely the final of his many trips to JUI-F president Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s home to discuss the constitutional modifications, Gohar Ali Khan addressed the media in the afternoon.
“Since this legislation is so serious, our leader Imran Khan will always have the final say on party decisions, so we act on his instructions and recommendations,” the PTI chairman stated. Mr. Khan also directed the party to hold more consultations before to voting.
Mr. Gohar remarked, “The PTI cannot vote for this bill given that we have no time for further consultations, how the bill was processed, and how our MNAs and senators were harassed and intimidated.”
A few PTI senators were in the house when the Senate met for the first time.
Only four to five senators are present, according to PTI’s parliamentary leader in the Senate, Barrister Ali Zafar, since the other members are worried that they “would be coerced to vote in favor of the amendment.” He voiced concern that certain PTI members would be coerced into casting pro-amendment votes in the house.
That did not, however, occur since just four members of the opposing benches voted against the bill’s table motion and subsequently against the changes, which were approved with the necessary two-thirds majority.
“Untraceable” PTI lawmakers
Asad Qaiser, a former speaker of the National Assembly, had earlier expressed regret over the PTI founding chairman’s imprisonment and prohibition from meeting with anyone in a video message.
He claimed that when a PTI member’s house was bulldozed, MNAs and their families were being threatened. On Sunday, PTI leaders asserted that a number of their legislators could not be located.
PTI Central Leader Omar Ayub Khan stated that they could not get in touch with seven lawmakers; Mr. Gohar estimated that there were only two. Neither mentioned a single politician by name.
Sources did, however, establish that up to 11 members of both homes had vanished since Sunday morning.
Two senators and nine members of the National Assembly made up the group. The MNAs Zain Qureshi, Zahoor Hussain Qureshi, Muhammad Aslam Ghumman, Usman Ali, Riaz Fatyana, Muhammad Miqdad Ali Khan, Aurangzeb Khan Khichi, Mubarak Zeb, and Muhammad Ilyas Choudhary were among the “missing” legislators, according to sources. Zarqa Suharwardy and Faisal Saleem were the two senators.
Response to the modification
The PTI spokesperson asserted in a statement that the house that enacted the 26th Constitutional Amendment was “not a representative of people.”
Declaring it a “Black Day,” the statement also revealed plans to launch an opposition movement to the amendment.
“The amendment’s sole purpose is to safeguard those who were admitted to the government by fraud.”
PTI, Imran Khan, and the 240 million Pakistanis have been shut out of politics. The PTI spokesperson said, “The judiciary’s independence has been reduced, and the court has been transformed into an instrument that will carry out the government’s directives.
The statement stated that the purpose of this law is to “stop the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court from becoming chief justice.” This reference was made to Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who was previously scheduled to take over as chief justice following the retirement of the current justice later this month. “The amendment has not improved the situation for the people of Pakistan and will not make their suffering any less severe, despite the regrettable fact that the government ran around trying to pass it.”
The PTI spokesperson described the judiciary as the sole line of resistance that has been “removed from the way of powers that be.”
The judges will become “tools of the government” as a result of the legislation designating one of the top three Supreme Court justices as chief justice.
