Opposition leaders, under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), geared up for a decisive battle against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government, setting the date of their long march on Islamabad and announced to jointly contest Senate polls.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the president of the 11-party alliance, announced that the long march to overthrow the government would be held on March 26. He also said that the parties agreed to contest the upcoming Senate election from a single platform.
Meanwhile, the government tabled a bill in the National Assembly to change the voting mechanism in the Senate elections from the secret to open balloting but the opposition has blocked voting on the bill. It is an open secret that candidates for the upper house have to spend huge amounts of money to buy votes from members of the provincial assemblies.
Our parliamentary system is rife with the politics of defections, floor crossings and forward blocs; and the buying and selling of votes have long been a major bane of our parliamentary system. It is the responsibility of all political parties to bring about reforms that can eliminate this practice of vote-buying in the Senate.
The January 31 ‘deadline’ that the Pakistan Democratic Movement had set for the prime minister to resign has gone, and the PTI government is looking more confident than ever. On the other hand, the rift can be clearly seen between the opposition alliance. A confusing situation has emerged between the opposition leaders on developments like mass resignation.
The confusion has enabled the PTI government to paint the PDM as a spent force that promised too much and failed to deliver. The dominos did not fall the way the PDM leaders assumed they would. However, despite the rift, the opposition’s decision to jointly contest Senate polls is a huge blow for Imran Khan-led government.
The combined opposition is still strong, and the PTI’s misgovernance in various sectors remains its weakness. The government should abandon unnecessary haste and engage the opposition in a meaningful consultation for a comprehensive set of electoral reforms.
