Opting out of budget debate

Of all the legislations parliaments do the most crucial is the passage of the annual budget. That the Opposition in the parliament would let the government pass the federal budget without offering it the obligated resistance is unthinkable, but not in Pakistan. Apparently, both on the final and penultimate days of budget discussion in the National Assembly, the Opposition had bartered away its role inside the house to capitalise on developments outside the house. On Monday, the Opposition members staged a walkout protesting against unrelenting loadshedding that contributed to hundreds of deaths in Karachi, and the treasury benches approved nearly 50 budgetary grants for various ministries and departments. The Opposition had tabled scores of cut motions on these demands, but left the house not to return for the day, sparing the bureaucracy of the usual ridicule stemming from discussion on their demands. On Tuesday, the Opposition members staged yet another walkout and turned it into a boycott, leaving the field open for the treasury benches to pass the Finance Bill 2015 with some amendments of its choice. Due to the absence of the Opposition members all of its 1550 prepared cut motions stood deleted from the proceedings. And a fairly relaxed Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had the last laugh; not only did he advise the political opposition to keep the national economy separate from politics, he also invited all the political parties to sign a 'Charter of Economy for medium and long-term economic development of the country'. And if there was a 'threat' from the Opposition to requisition a session of the National Assembly to debate and expose the gross failure of the PML (N)-led coalition government, the finance minister was willing to have the ongoing budget session extended by some days. Conceded, the easy passage of federal budget in the absence of the Opposition from the house is at best a Pyrrhic victory for the government, but the failure of Opposition in this particular instance is also massive.
The finance bill is said to be the most important and keenly contested bill of the year. How come the Opposition members opted out of debate and discussion on it? To be the part of the budget debate on the floor of the National Assembly and to thoroughly condemn the failure of federal government's energy policy reflected as it is from the hundreds of deaths caused by excessive loadshedding, the parliamentary Opposition could do both. But in this case the Opposition leaders in the National Assembly seemed to have been led to believe that time has come to join hands and push the government out of the chair - a sentiment they share across the board. Nothing else puts them on the same platform and the same page, and that the people of Pakistan know very well. No question about the energy crisis fiasco, which appears to be as much a verdict on the failed planning of the Nawaz Sharif government as antithetical it is, to its self-styled image of a down-to-earth working and delivering government. While it is sharply focused on mega projects, more in line with the Mughal architectural heritage than in consonance with the immediate needs of the people. Then there is the legacy of false hopes and unmet promises the PML (N) leadership have been making all these months and years to overcome the country's crippling energy shortages. This ominous backdrop is of course appealing enough for the opposition political parties to nurture a joint push against the PML (N) government. But this does expose also the hollowness of our political elite's thinking process and its agendas. Maybe, the perception that 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' has generated this bonhomie among the leaders of PPP, PTI and MQM. Of course, the lust for power is insatiable. However, if power is to be harvested, courtesy a working democracy, then the opposition leadership owes an explanation about their being at each other's throat last week but allies this week in a common cause to score vitriolic verbal attacks on the government. And that too at the cost of forfeiting their opportunity to put the government on the mat for their economic mismanagement.