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Pakistan MPs take oath

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s 13th National Assembly met on Monday in an inaugural session at which its newly elected members were sworn in and Wednesday was set as the date for the election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker.

Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League (N) Nawaz Sharif are not members of the National Assembly as neither contested the election. But all eyes were on the visitors’ gallery, where the two, who lead the two largest parties in the House and expect to form a coalition government with smaller parties, sat side-by-side watching the proceedings.

Their arrival at the National Assembly in the morning caused a near stampede in the media’s scrum at the gates wanting to find out about the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate.

But the PPP is still playing its cards close to its chest on its choice of Prime Minister, and Mr. Zardari made light of the question when confronted by journalists.

“I have decided that Mian Nawaz Sharif is my Prime Minister,” he said. Reflecting the new-found bonhomie between the two parties, Mr. Sharif reciprocated the good humour by declaring that Mr. Zardari was the PML(N)’s choice for Prime Minister.

The two leaders, along with Asfandyar Wali Khan of the Awami National Party and Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami, chaired over a joint meeting of their National Assembly members before they went in for the oath-taking ceremony.

In a sign that the PPP leadership is trying to heal the internal rifts over the battle for the premiership, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, deputy chairman of the PPP, who has been sulking about being sidelined for the Prime Minister’s post, was the fifth chair of the meeting.

Asked by journalists about his candidature for the premiership, Mr. Fahim only said the “Prime Minister will be from Pakistan, and he will enjoy the support of the entire country.”

According to those present at the closed door meeting of the coalition parliamentarians, Mr. Sharif said the coalition enjoyed a two-thirds majority, and were equipped to meet confront “the conspiracies being hatched by the presidency” against the victorious parties.

“The conspiracies of the presidency will be fought with the strength of the Parliament,” said Mr. Sharif.

Later, 329 members of the 342-member House took the oath collectively and went up one by one to sign the register.

Results for the some of the remaining seats have yet to be declared, while the election was postponed and cancelled in some.

Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif watched from the Prime Minister’s box of the visitor’s gallery, surrounded by their advisers and confidantes.

Ahsan Iqbal of the PML(N) rose to say that the presence of the two leaders in the House was evidence that the people had rejected the coup of October 1999.

The outgoing speaker, Chaudhary Amir Hussein, administered the oath, but allowed a PPP member to declare at the beginning that the members should take the oath on the 1973 Constitution, and not the post-November 2007 amended version.

After the oath, on a point of order by another PPP member that the National Assembly must remember Benazir Bhutto on this occasion as she had paid with her life for the democratic cause, the entire House offered prayers for the assassinated leader.

The nominations for the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker will be made on Tuesday and the election will be held the next day.

According to media reports, the National Assembly may notch up a first by electing a woman as a Speaker with the PPP’s Fehmida Mirza said to be a strong contender. The inaugural session is to be prorogued after this, but the parliamentarians have decided that if Musharraf does not summon the National Assembly within three days for the swearing-in of the PM, they will requisition the new Speaker to convene the House again.

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