The government has finally made a pragmatic move to end the deadlock over the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairmanship that had rendered parliament almost dysfunctional for nearly four months. PTI Vice President Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced in the assembly on Thursday that Prime Minister Imran Khan had agreed to "review his stance in the interest of democracy and for making parliament functional." The agreement is based on a compromise solution proposed by the PPP. Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif gets the position on the condition that he will not preside over the committee when it reviews audit reports on the last government of his own party, the PML-N. Speaker Asad Qaiser - who is reported to have played a helpful role alongside some senior PTI leaders in convincing the PM to show flexibility - must now act swiftly to form various parliamentary committees so the nation's highest legislative forum gets on with its business. Because of the gridlock, he is already running late by three months.
Unfortunately, so far the legislature has not been able to pass a single piece of legislation except the unavoidable finance bill. And barring a few initial appearances, Imran Khan has stayed away from parliament from which he derives the legitimacy to govern, not to mention his unkept promise of answering the legislators' queries in a bimonthly 'Prime Minister's question hour'. Some in his party lay the blame for his absence on the opposition's 'bad behaviour'. Indeed, the other side has frequently been staging walkouts, but more often than not, the provocation comes from the treasury benches. Ministers have been repeatedly calling senior members and leaders of the opposition thieves and robbers, justifying their fulminations as a core point of the PTI's anti-corruption mandate. In so doing, they only vitiated the political atmosphere inside and outside parliament. Instead of harping on the same tune, they ought to have focused on issues of governance, whilst the relevant institutions did their job. Various corruption cases are being investigated by the National Accountability Bureau, and legal proceedings are under way in courts.
Needless to say, a strong parliament is a sine qua non of a functioning democracy. Both the opposition and ruling party must ensure its smooth running, though for obvious reasons the latter bears greater responsibility. Now that the key issue of contention is out of the way, the opposition has said it would extend fullest cooperation to the government in the formation of standing committees and legislation work. Hopefully, it would avoid staging walkouts unless absolutely necessary, and the government will do all that is required to strengthen parliament. A good start would be for the Prime Minister to regularly attend its proceedings and also deliver on his promise of holding his bimonthly question hour.
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