Vote on no-confidence: Gripping episode concludes next week

ISLAMABAD: The gripping events that kicked off with the submission of a no-confidence resolution by the opposition parties against Prime Minister Imran Khan on March 8 will culminate some time next week with a vote on the motion.

Speaker Asad Qaiser is to preside over the critical National Assembly proceedings as well as the final act – the vote. Questions have already been raised about his conduct by his detractors, specifically the dilatory tactics in convening the session to the benefit of the government and the disadvantage of the opposition.

With the no-trust motion raising the political temperature, the lower house of parliament is likely to see shouting matches and heated constitutional and legal debate on the day. Some experts, who present themselves as the legal wizards of the government, have come up with unusual interpretations of the Constitution and rules governing the proceeding on the no-confidence resolution to extend a helping hand to the speaker to delay the process as much as he can. However, Asad Qaiser has announced that he would follow the Constitution in disposing of the motion.

A couple of months before the filing of the resolution with the National Assembly secretariat, hectic activities were witnessed by the opposition parties and the government side led by the premier himself.

At no point in time have such a large number of consultative meetings been held by both sides to achieve their intended objectives. Never before had the opposition parties thrown such a huge number of feasts for their MPs. Almost all the opposition members of the National Assembly had been confined to their parliamentary lodges and other Islamabad residences so that none of them is found missing during the grand vote. It is the responsibility of the sponsors of the motion to produce the magic figure of 172 MPs if they want to succeed. The government will attempt to have all their members absent from the proceedings.

The top leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), the three main opposition parties, have held innumerable sessions with partners of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which had been its allies for more than three years. The feverish involvement of the opposition leaders with them compared to the PTI’s consultations with them suggest that the allies have distanced themselves from the government. However, despite this widely held impression, none of the federal ministers belonging to the allied parties has walked out of the federal cabinet so far. It will be keenly watched whether Dr Fehmida Mirza, belonging to the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), and Dr Farogh Naseem, hailing from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), quit the cabinet and when. Dr Fehmida Mirza has serious issues with the PPP because of the old dispute of her husband Zulfikar Mirza with Asif Ali Zardari in her home Sindh district. More than once in the past, the MQM-P has disowned Farogh Naseem as its nominee in the federal cabinet.

No day has passed during this thrilling period when Imran Khan has not consulted with his close ministers and aides to evolve a day to day strategy to nail the no-trust motion. In-between, he has held a few public meetings where he echoed his favourite political themes against his rivals. Apart from these huddles, the two sides have vociferously fought the battle on the TV screens.

The apparent primary purpose of Imran Khan’s visit to the Lahore residence of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat Lahore was to muster the PML-Q’s support against the no-confidence resolution. The same was the objective behind his yatra to the office of the MQM-P. But in neither of the two sessions did he directly seek their votes against the resolution. He deemed it appropriate to let it go unsaid that he wanted their votes and left it to the allies to judge his desire.

The crisis simmering in the PTI came into the open as the no-trust resolution was filed. The open rebellion by more than a dozen members has rattled the ruling party. But ironically, it has not been able to curb the revolt as it lacked any serious interlocutor. Instead of trying to appease them, the prime minister’s stinging remarks against the rebels further infuriarated them. On the one hand, he dubbed them as conscience sellers and thoroughly corrupt while on the other he beseeched them to come back and said he would accept them in the PTI fold. None of the apparent deserters has so far been wooed or cowed down by the conciliatory assertions and threats to proceed against them.

The government has also not been able to take care of the crisis spearheaded by estranged PTI leader Jahangir Tareen. Efforts to appease this group have not borne fruit so far. The faction leader, Tareen, is watching and directing the entire activities of the cluster from the cool comfort of London where he has been staying for his treatment.

The opposition parties, which had been crestfallen during the past three years, started exuding tremendous confidence after October 6, 2021, when the ‘same page’ narrative seemed in trouble. While the government seemed rattled since then, the opposition has been buoyed.

In the run-up to next week’s decisive vote, all eyes are set on the prime minister’s speech to the PTI’s March 27 public meeting in the federal capital. Imran Khan has drummed up the impression that he would drop a bombshell during his address and use his trump card a day before the voting. A guessing game is now on about his stunning announcements.

Not only through this public meeting but in a spate of other rallies the premier has held in different towns, Imran Khan has tried to make people believe that the battle will be fought at the public level instead of in the National Assembly’s confines. However, there is no need to bring a massive number of people from various parts of Pakistan to the public meeting if the PTI can produce 172 members of parliament in the prime minister’s support to defeat the no-trust motion.