Pakistan speaker keeps PTI 'resignation pot boiling'

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly (NA) speaker Pervez Ashraf accepted on Friday resignations of 35 more Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party lawmakers, days after acting in a similar way on as many quit letters of the Imran Khan-led party.

A total of 123 legislators had resigned en masse from the lower house of parliament after Imran’s ouster as PM through a no-confidence vote in April last year.

Ashraf has been accepting the PTI resignations in dribs and drabs over the past eight months.

The latest acceptance rush seems prompted by Imran’s announcement last week to return to parliament to oust the current Shehbaz Sharif-led PML (N) coalition government through a no-trust vote.

The phase-wise acceptance is being seen as a ploy to ensure Shehbaz faces no threat and to deny PTI any role in the formation of a caretaker government. The total resignations accepted now stand at 81, while 43 still await the speaker’s approval.

Speaking outside Parliament House on Friday, senior PTI leaders claimed the speaker reneged on his earlier stance by accepting the fresh lot of 35 resignations and reiterated their demand for fresh elections.

PTI leader Asad Qaiser called the speaker’s action “immoral and illegal”. Qaiser’s party colleague, former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, echoed the views and said Pakistan was facing an economic and political crisis because of “incompetent rulers” who represent just 36 per cent of the country and take decisions in “closed-door meetings”.

In April last year, former deputy speaker Qasim Suri had accepted all PTI resignations. But on April 17, Ashraf, then newly elected speaker, ordered that the resignations be dealt with afresh “as per the law”.

Ashraf accepted 11 resignations in July. Byelections were held to the vacated seats. Imran himself contested eight seats and won seven.

After delaying the process on the pretext of verification for months, Ashraf accepted the resignations of 34 PTI lawmakers on January 17 and another of former home minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, the lone member of his Awami Muslim League.

The opposition against the Shehbaz government comprises PTI turncoats who had refused to resign. One of the turncoats, Raja Riaz, became leader of the opposition. Nominating an interim PM requires both the PM and leader of the opposition to agree. If they don’t, the election commission takes the decision.

The Shehbaz-led government has been under pressure since the dissolution of provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the PTI chief ministers. The provinces comprise 70 per cent of the country’s population.