There was unanimity of views among lawmakers belonging to the treasury and opposition within the National Assembly on Monday that politicians were mainly liable for the shortage of civilian supremacy within the country, but they toed their respective party lines and hit out at one another while explaining reasons for it.
The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was of the view that there might be no civilian rule out the country without giving “respect to voting” and ensuring fair and transparent elections whereas the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) involved ending corruption and hereditary politics for establishing civilian supremacy within the country.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) involved fixing a truth and reconciliation commission to repair responsibility for past mistakes and said politicians’ “double standards” had actually alienated the state from the system and politics.
The admission came during a debate in NA on Alvi’s address to parliament
These views were expressed by lawmakers while participating during a much-delayed debate on the mandatory address of President Dr. Arif Alvi to the joint sitting of the parliament on August 20 last year.
In their speeches, the members also kept on mentioning the briefing given by the military leadership to the parliamentary leaders on Dominion Day on the worsening regional situation with reference to the scenario in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of folks troops.
Referring to the safety briefing, PML-N’s parliamentary leader Khawaja Asif termed things within the region “alarming” and warned if things worsened in Pakistan then it might become difficult for them to face it with such a lot of fault lines on the idea of faith, sub-nationalities, and provinces.
According to Khwaja Asif, who had served because the country’s secretary of state during the PML-N government, “the situation is so alarming that the facade can subside at any moment”.
“If God forbid, the Afghan situation causes any negative impact on us, then we perhaps won’t be ready to handle it,” he warned.
According to the PML-N leader, the answer to all or any problems lay in free and fair elections. He regretted that after every election the country plunged into crisis.
Khawaja Asif held politicians liable for this state of affairs within the country as, consistent with him, that they had been seeking the “establishment’s” support since 1950 merely to accumulate power.
The PML-N leader said he considered the people at the highest in politics, army, judiciary, bureaucracy, and media as “establishment”. These people are in hundreds and not even in thousands, he said.
“When we call these (forces) then they gradually intrude on our territory,” he said, adding: “Today our territory has shrunk.”
“In the last seven decades, the politicians had negotiated with the establishment just for the sake of power and surrendered (their space),” he added.
The PML-N leader said the country would still face a crisis-like situation if “politicians continue looking towards Pindi”, a regard to the army’s command post (GHQ). He said politicians had played the role of “facilitators” to the military regimes.
“Commenting on my budget speech, my brother Noor Alam Khan said it seemed that my software has been updated. If this situation continues, software of all folks are going to be updated,” he said while pertaining to his speech during the last month’s budget session during which he didn’t make any mention of the establishment and mostly talked about general issues and therefore the budget.
Terming the safety briefing “candid”, he said it had been said within the briefing that each one of the governments, including the military regimes, had committed mistakes within the past.
“When all folks have committed mistakes, then we should always attend the people to hunt a fresh mandate and secure the territory that has been encroached upon by the institutions,” he said. He asked Speaker Asad Qaiser to influence his party’s leadership to empower the parliament because it was the key to solving all problems.
The PML-N leader said they might establish civilian supremacy only by giving reference to the vote.
Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood endorsed most of the points raised by the PML-N MNA from Sialkot but said Khawaja Asif should have talked about “hereditary politics” and therefore the politicians who had made billions after entering politics.
Raja Pervez Ashraf of the PPP said on one hand Prime Minister Imran Khan talked about fair and transparent elections and on the opposite, the Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs had announced during the election campaign in Azad Kashmir that the govt would spend Rs10 million per vote on the idea of victory margin within the constituencies.
