PTI govt leading country to crisis: Sherry Rehman

ISLAMABAD: PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman said on Friday that the PTI government was leading the country to a constitutional crisis.

“In another unprecedented move, the government has announced that its lawmakers will not attend the no-confidence vote as the government is also trying to delay voting, which will only lead to more chaos in the country and could seriously endanger the lives of the parliamentarians on both the sides,” she said this while commenting on the reports of the government strategy to delay the voting on no-confidence motion against the Prime minister and incident occurred on Thursday night at Parliament Lodges.

Senator Sherry Rehman said that the government constantly flaunted its artificial majority and was now utterly terrified of allowing the vote of no-confidence to be carried out. “The government’s tactics have become an embarrassing descent into chaotic decisions. Imran Khan seems to be in meltdown, given the language he is using and steps they are taking,” she said.

She said that the prime minister need to take a hard look at the cronies that he surrounded himself with, as well as his sycophantic legal team which is misleading him due to their expedient but incorrect interpretation of the Constitution. She said it needed to be categorically clarified to both the government and the people that the constitution did not give Speaker power to disqualify a member before voting. “No one can stop a member from coming to Parliament either,” she said.

The PPP leader said the neither could Speaker prevent members from voting nor could he disqualify them before the voting. “A member of Parliament can be disqualified by the Election Commission at the request of the party head, which is a process that takes 30 days,” she said. However, she said the Speaker did not hold the authority to do so, as per the constitution. “This is another desperation, thinly veiled tactic by the government to create a constitutional crisis within the country, rather than addressing the issue at hand i.e. nation’s complete lack of faith in the Prime Minister,” she said.

Senator Sherry Rehman said the events that transpired last night in the Parliamentary Lodges had generated shockwaves throughout the country as from Karachi to Khyber, the country watched the violent raid on the lodges in shock which crossed all red lines and surpassed even the most dictatorial regimes in this country’s history. “Raiding the lodges in such a manner was a grotesque display of power by the authority and a message to the nation of the draconian state our country can become if the government is faced with resistance,” she said.