FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

The Senate was expected to conclude on Sunday the debate on the president's address to parliament, but it did not. Some members, including the PPPP's parliamentary leader Raza Rabbani, have yet to speak on it, to be followed by the winding up by leader of the house Wasim Sajjad.
The house will now meet on Wednesday, hopefully to conclude discussion on the president's address. But the session would continue till March 10 - to complete its mandatory 90 days work for the year.
But for two token walkouts, one exclusively by women members triggered by Anwar Baig's un-parliamentary remarks about the weaker sex and the other by the combined opposition on the Wana killings, the proceedings were conducted in relative peace and tranquility.
The peace in the house could be attributed also to the considerably reduced presence of members from both sides. At no time there were more than 30 members present, and for quite some time their strength was below the quorum requirement.
The debate and discussion on the president's address started on February 20. By now when most of the senators have spoken the broad pattern of discourse has crystallised.
One pronounced feature of the pattern is the government members' total support of the speech and the opposition's complete rejection of it.
None from the treasury benches found anything, howsoever minute and insignificant, in President Musharraf's speech objectionable or impractical. But for the opposition members his every word smacked of betrayal and motivated by naked desire to perpetuate.
Another outstanding feature of the debate is unrelenting push by the senators, particularly of those from the NWFP and Balochistan, for more provincial autonomy.
Quite often the senators from Balochistan made common cause of the issues concerning their province.
The ethnic division - Urban vs. local in Sindh, Pashtun vs Baloch in Balochistan - also figured but only occasionally. Indeed the women members exhibited loyalty to their respective leaderships but when there was a common cause for them they forged common stand.
Another significant trend that emerged in the debate is hard work that senators put in their speeches. Of course all the speeches were not very rich in content but there were quite a few which appeared to have been the result of research.
In another dimension while the lady members focussed more often on social and developmental issues the men-folk concentrated on political issues and took issue, for and against, with the government on its various positions on important foreign policy matters.
In fact, the house opened its Saturday's sitting on such a matter that was killing of 11 persons near Wana, in South Waziristan, on Friday.
Speaking on a point of order opposition's Azam Swati raised the Wana killings' issue, backed by Hamidullah Afridi who complained the people in tribal areas are being subjected to discriminatory law.
For good 25 days the Punjab minister Shahani was held in Bannu the punishment was being delivered to tribesmen, 50 of them incarcerated for no fault of their. He demanded high-level inquiry into the incident of killing, which was consequent to 'misinformation'. MMA's Professor Khurshid Ahmad charged that in tribal Areas the government is carrying out America-First, instead of Pakistan-First policy fondly floated by the president. His colleague Prof. Ghafoor Ahmad termed the Wana killings cold-blooded murder.
As this was being said on a point of order and the government blamed for the incident the government senators were quiet.
Then, Nisar Memon came into action; he must have thought of derailing the Wana train by raising some other issue.
He wanted the government position on the reported arsenic presence in the sub-soil water in 10 districts of Punjab. Yasmeen Shah thought the Rawalpindi suicide bombing of the day before could help rescue the government.
Senior member Anwar Bhinder pointed out the irrelevance of the discussion as he said it was against rule of procedure. But nothing helped. Soon the more powerful voices of Farhatullah Babar and Raza Rabbani joined the course of condemnation.
At long last Aftab Sherpao, who is also minister for the tribal areas, came to rescue of the government.
He put the entire Wana episode in the perspective and informed the house that inquiry has been ordered. Wasim Sajjad soon joined him to assert that operating in South Waziristan is not at the behest of any foreign power, nor are there on the Pakistani soil foreign troops. By then an hour had elapsed and the chairman took up the debate on the president's address.
Following speeches by women senators Rozina Alam and Dr Nighat Agha and Gul Nasib, PPPP's Anwer Baig who made some unsavory comments, some so pungent that the chair expunged them.
He said Musharraf patronised corruption, corrupted laws to keep Benazir Bhutto out of elections, and pauperised the nation so much so that 751 persons committed suicide in 2003 alone.
One hundred rich families of Karachi made billions of rupees at Karachi Stock Exchange thanks to speculation and "you say economy is working".
He said 12 billion dollars foreign exchange reserves is misleading as half of it was purchased from the open market and the rest is due to heavy remittances forced by post-9/11 regulations. And the Habib Bank privatisation "was the biggest dacoity".
Two good speeches were by minority senator Roshan Khurshid Bharocha and Dr Kausar Firdos, both of them being academic but well prepared and well delivered.
They had their own perspectives on the enormous challenges faced by the people of Pakistan and one may agree with them or not, but their sincerity in what they said was overwhelming.