KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman while criticising the government for its presidential ordinance to amend Elections Act, 2017, for holding upcoming Senate poll through open ballot, has alleged it of creating “constitutional crisis” in the country.

She was addressing a press conference in Karachi flanked by PPP stalwart and former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani.

The ordinance came into effect immediately, according to a clause in it, and extended to the whole of Pakistan. It said that with the Senate and National Assembly not in session, the president was satisfied that "circumstances exist" which rendered the ordinance necessary to take immediate action.

Sherry Rehman said that they have created a constitutional crisis with their own hands and the sole reason for it was that the PTI government had feared its members

and their votes were no longer "in their hands".

"You are playing your cards in a way that can create an emergency situation in the country," the PPP leader said and alleged that the promulgation of the ordinance amounted to an attack on the Constitution and the parliament. "They are ripping its [Constitution's] amendments in the Constitution is the function of the parliament and no one can deny this," she stressed.

The PPP Senator questioned why the government had passed the ordinance when the presidential reference on the matter was still pending in the Supreme Court and the constitutional amendment bill was still in the National Assembly and thus the "property of the parliament".

Sherry further stated that the intentions of the government were clear for all to see and the PPP would "reject them and will challenge them on every level".—