Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s adviser on foreign affairs and national security, Sartaj Aziz, speaking in the lower house after more than 13 years, in response to an opposition call-attention notice, also made it clear that the PML-N government would seek to resolve the drone issue through talks rather than issuing threats.

Contrary to an encouragement from Washington claimed by the elderly adviser ahead of what will be the new government’s first high-level talks with the United States,
another of his cabinet colleagues, Water and Power Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif, had little to lift the gloom from probably the worst power cuts in the country while the two-week-old government saw its so-called honeymoon period spoiled by a persistent criticism of its budget for fiscal 2013-14 on the fourth day of a general debate.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, who did not come to the house since its opening on June 1 because of serious injuries he suffered during an election campaign accident last month, could significantly add to opposition attacks against the budget when he is due to come to the chamber on Wednesday to take oath as lawmaker.

The call-attention notice over drone attacks, from PTI’s Shirin Mehrunnisa Mazari and Raja Aamer Zaman, complained of “non-formulation of a clear policy on drone attacks” ahead of Mr Kerry visit, which was originally expected later this month but was reportedly put off owing to developments in the Syrian civil war.

However, Mr Aziz said that Mr Kerry was “likely to visit Pakistan next month” and that the government would raise the issue with him “to make him realise that drone attacks are counter-productive in the war against terrorism”.

In an apparent reference to a hard line taken by Imran Khan on the issue during the election campaign such as the possibility of shooting down the attacking unmanned machines, the adviser said: “Instead of pursuing the policy of threat, we need to resolve this issue through talks.”

To date since 2010, Mr Aziz listed more than 280 drone attacks on suspected militant hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), which Pakistan regards violation of its sovereignty, though US officials have often claimed consent of Pakistani authorities to the strikes which killed senior figures of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban rebels as well as civilians living in the targeted areas.

Mr Aziz described a recent policy statement by US President Barack Obama about tighter control over drone attacks as encouraging and said statements about Pakistan by US officials after the elections also had been positive.

And ahead of Mr Kerry’s visit, a senior figure of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Naveed Qamar, who has been finance and water and power minister in the previous PPP-led coalition government, made a strong call to the government, during his party’s most stinging attack on the budget, to implement the recently concluded agreement with Iran for building the Pakistani portion of an Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline opposed by America.

He said the prime minister should make a clear statement in parliament to dispel the impression that the government might drag its feet on the agreement signed during the last days of the PPP government.

But he wondered whether it would be done, saying: “Saudi Arabia has to be pleased and so America,” and added: “You have to protect either our own interests or of others.”

In the present dire energy situation in Pakistan, he said, “we cannot take dictates from other countries”.

He said Pakistan would have to pay millions of dollars in penalties if it did not start buying Iranian gas in 2014 as provided in the agreement, warning that America would not pay that amount.

Mr Qamar likened the PML-N’s painting of what he called the previous government’s “tight fiscal policy” as mismanagement to the tactics of Joseph Goebbels, the notorious propaganda minister of German dictator Adolf Hitler, to make people believe in lies and said the new government did not seem prepared for a similar belt-tightening and that its budget would lead to “bland inflation”.

Khwaja Asif, responding to a call-attention notice from three members of the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and one of the PML-N, said he could not promise an early end to electricity loadshedding to manage shortages but would come with a comprehensive policy, or roadmap, in 15 to 20 days to reduce loadshedding and end unscheduled cuts.

The authors of the notice had complained of what it called 20 to 22 hours of daily loadshedding in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and in the Punjab province districts of Jhang and Chiniot.

But the minister said shortages had forced power cuts of 14 hours in rural areas, 12 hours in urban areas and eight hours for commercial establishments all over the country, except for Karachi where the privately-owned power company had a different arrangement.

And his plea that the PML-N government should not be held responsible for the previous five years of the PPP government or nine years of military president Pervez Musharraf, brought a sharp retort from opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah, who recalled what he called a sentimental claim by Khwaja Asif in the house that the PPP government was manipulating loadshedding and that it could be eliminated within three days because of the country’s generation capacity of 20,000 megawatts.

In speeches during two sittings of the day, there was more criticism and less appreciation for the budget before the house was adjourned until 10.30am on Wednesday.

The National Assembly and the Senate passed separate resolutions on the second day of their debates on the budget for 2013-14 to condemn what the lower house resolution called “inhuman and cowardly acts of terror”.

The resolution said the whole nation had been “deeply shocked and grieved” at the blowing up of the Ziarat Residency, which it said “symbolises Pakistan’s historic legacy”.

It said the nation had been “stunned and greatly saddened by the callous, targeted murder” of girl students of a women’s university and “terrorist attack” on Bolan Medical College and Hospital in Quetta.

While the National Assembly, informed earlier that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid had gone to Balochistan for an on-the-spot review of the situation, interrupted its budget debate in the afternoon to pass the resolution moved by Law and Justice Minister Zahid Hamid with the consent of all parties represented in the house, the Senate passed a brief resolution on the same lines earlier in the day, with a prominent opposition member expressing his fear that the latest violence could be aimed to hurt the new provincial government.

“Whenever there is an effort to resolve the Balochistan problem, some big incident takes place,” Senator Raza Rabbani, parliamentary leader of the opposition PPP, said in a brief speech after the passage of the resolution moved by PML-N Senator Nuzhat Sadiq, adding that this seemed to be an effort to fail the new political set-up there as the earlier violence in the province had hit the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan package of the PPP-led government.

WATER FEARS HEAT UP: Sindh’s oft-expressed complaints of not getting its due share of irrigation water from the Indus river frayed tempers for a while during the budget debate in NA after a minister taunted the PPP over its defeat in the polls.

A PPP member from Sindh, Mohammad Ayaz Soomro raised the water issue after attacking what he described an “anti-people and anti-poor” budget, warning the PML-N government against causing an inter-provincial clash over water and calling for an equitable distribution of Sindh river water.

Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal, who appeared provoked by the warning that he probably took as a tactic to fan inter-provincial differences, recalled that it was then prime minister Nawaz Sharif who had initiated the 1991 water accord and got it accepted by all the provincial governments. Mr Iqbal assured the house that “no province can grab another’s water”.

And it was his jibe that, after the May 11 elections, the PPP now had a “diminished stature” from that of a national party that sparked a chorus of protests from the PPP benches and an unfulfilled demand that the speaker expunge the minister’s remark.

However, the uproar ended after Nawab Mohammad Yousuf Talpur, a veteran PPP member known for championing Sindh’s water rights, said there was no dispute over the 1991 accord but the question was its implementation, which he said must be done.

He cited what he saw a case of violation of the accord in the Chashma-Jhelum canal being run permanently though he said it was meant only for the flood period.

The most sentimental speech came from a young ruling party member, Shahabuddin Khan, from Bajaur tribal region, who said 58 members of his tribe, including his two brothers and 18 guards, had been killed in militant violence and that “I am now left alone”.

He demanded that Fata be either made a separate province or part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to bring it in the mainstream as a possible remedy and, while complaining of lack of consultation with him or other Fata lawmakers, he offered a dire prediction: “If you do not pay attention to Fata, Islamabad and Lahore too could see what had happened in Quetta.”

Both the decisions, apparently an exercise in damage control and coming just three days after the new government presented its first budget, were announced in the National Assembly by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

But the salary raise failed to satisfy opposition lawmakers who called for a higher increase in view of the price hike caused by budgetary measures like an increase in General Sales Tax (GST). The salary issue echoed also in the Senate.

The leader of opposition in the National Assembly, Khursheed Ahmed Shah, and Senator Raza Rabbani, parliamentary leader of the PPP in the upper house, opened the debates in the houses on the budget for 2013-14 which, they said, was meant to benefit the rich rather than the poor or middle class, a charge rejected by treasury benches.

The abrupt start of collection of the GST at the new rate of 17 per cent — as provided in the new Finance Bill — sparked a walkout in the National Assembly by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) whose parliamentary leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the collection before the adoption of the bill by the lower house was a violation of the constitution.

Mr Dar and Law and Justice Minister Zahid Hamid justified the collection by referring to a British-era Provisional Collection of Taxes Act which authorised the government to do so. They said this (the collection) had often been seen in the past, in Pakistan and “its neighbourhood”.

Mr Qureshi refused to buy the argument and asked his party’s lawmakers to stage a walkout. However, the PPP, the main opposition party, did not join them and Mr Shah opened the debate in their absence.

He urged the treasury benches to bring the PTI members back to the house. Some government ministers and members belonging to the ruling PML-N tried to persuade the protesters to return to the house but to no avail. Taking benefit of a break in the proceedings during ‘Azan’ for Zuhar prayers, Mr Shah and former speaker of the house Dr Fehmida Mirza went to an adjoining lobby where PTI legislators were sitting and successfully convinced them to rejoin the proceedings.

Before the resumption of the debate, the finance minister announced that the government, which had refrained from announcing annual salary increase in the budget, had decided to increase the salaries by 10 per cent after seeking guidance from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, although a committee set up to review the issue after the announcement of the budget had, in view of the financial situation, recommended only a 7.5 per cent increase which would have cost Rs16.5 billion.

After the PTI walkout following a fierce censure by Mr Qureshi who termed GST collection at the new rate before the start of the new fiscal on July 1 “a proof of the hollowness of a Taj Mahal of hopes you (Nawaz Sharif) had built”, and a demand by Awami Muslim League leader Sheikh Rashid Ahmed for an increase in salaries by up to 20 per cent, the minister said the salary issue could be reviewed again by the time he would wind up the budget debate “if some space is available”.

It was during Khursheed Shah’s speech when he deplored the omission of the name of the assassinated former prime minister from the title of the Benazir Income Support Programme in the budget speech that Mr Dar interrupted him to say that the programme, for which Rs75 billion had been allocated, would retain the “same name”.

Criticising the budget which, he said, was “neither a poor man’s budget nor of the labourer”, Mr Shah regretted that the finance minister had not “said a word” about peasants in his budget speech and allowed duty-free import of costly hybrid cars but did not exempt bicycles from sales tax. He rejected the minister’s claim that the new government had inherited an “empty treasury” and said that almost all finance ministers, including Mr Dar when he held the same portfolio for some months in the previous PPP-led coalition government, had said the same thing in the past.

The parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Dr Farooq Sattar, also joined the tirade and said: “The budget reflects a privileged mindset and has the potential of unleashing a tsunami of inflation.”

Before the assembly was adjourned until 11.30am on Sunday, a stout defence of the budget came from Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal, who cited seven priorities of the government: revival of energy security, stabilisation of the economy, private-public partnership, infrastructure building, restoration of peace and security, institutional reforms and human resource development.

In the Senate, main attack on the budget came from Senator Rabbani who regretted government failure to fix a higher minimum wage for workers from the present PPP-fixed Rs8,000, and said the budget reflected a “clear trend towards corporate elite” at the cost of the working class.

He warned against privatisation of public enterprises, saying such a move would lead to retrenchment of workers “which we will not allow”.

PML-N Senator Jaffer Iqbal said that those enterprises would “invite privatisation” whose state of affairs did not improve even with new professional management.

s of poor, provoking the first protest in the new National Assembly by the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

But the minister’s assurance that what he repeatedly described as the Income Support Programme – instead of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) launched by the previous PPP-led coalition government to give Rs1,000 monthly to a poor family – would be continued and expanded could not satisfy the protesters, who briefly interrupted his speech to insist that the programme be described by actual name, as given in an act of parliament.

Shagufta Jumani, a PPP lawmaker from Sindh, was the first to interrupt the finance minister, saying “it is Benazir Income Support Programme” and she and Mir Munawar Ali Talpur, another party member from the same province – stood up in their seats to agitate their point while similar protest was heard also from several other PPP benches although party stalwarts like Khursheed Ahmed Shah, the new opposition leader, and former speaker Fehmida Mirza, sat quietly on their front benches.

“It is the same programme,” retorted the finance minister in perhaps his only remark outside the nearly two hours’ prepared speech, which otherwise passed off smoothly, with repeated cheers by desk-thumping from the ruling PML-N. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appeared undisturbed by this contrast from unusual cordiality seen over the past few days between him and the PPP leadership during a smooth transition from one elected government to another, as he went through the budget speech at his desk, often marking some points with a ball-point pen, as the finance minister read it out.

This was far cry from a noisy PML-N protest at the presentation of the PPP government’s last budget last year when the protesters virtually besieged then finance minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, with one of them, Tehmina Daultana, hurling glass bangles at him as an insult while another, Ahsan Iqbal, the new minister for planning and development, unsuccessfully tried to deliver a loaf to him to highlight the high cost of food.

In another apparent dig at the PPP, the finance minister cited what he called a “historic decision” by the new prime minister in announcing
the renaming of one part of the People’s Works Programme, or PWP-I – under which equal amount are sanctioned for all parliamentarians for public works schemes recommended by them – as Tameer-i-Watan Programme while abolishing its second part, PWP-II, which he said had no structure and depended on a prime minister’s discretion.

Though there was no immediate protest at this, the move to rename the BISP, which can be done only by amending the existing act of parliament, is likely to produce some fireworks during the debate on the budget for fiscal 2013-14 beginning on Saturday.

The PML-N won simple majority in the 342-seat National Assembly in the May 11 elections, and its allies can easily get an amendment bill passed by the lower house, but such a passage seems unlikely in the 104-seat Senate, where the PPP and its allies in the previous government had a two-thirds majority.

Mr Dar claimed credit for designing what he called an “income support fund” as finance minister in the days of the PPP government before his party left the coalition, and, apparently referring to naming it Benazir Income Support Programme, said its “purity” was compromised and it was politicised.

The PPP says the programme was given that name to honour the memory of Ms Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Dec 27, 2007, after she had addressed a campaign rally at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh park.

Mr Dar said the prime minister had decided that the “Income Support Programme would continue and would also be expanded” by raising its size to Rs75bn compared to Rs40bn spent last year (though the BISP website put its 2012-13 allocation at Rs70bn to help 5.5 million families) and the monthly grant to Rs1,200.

Making a record sixth address to a joint sitting of the National Assembly and Senate since taking office in September 2008, his prepared speech seemed aimed at avoiding any comment that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif or his PML-N would not stomach, though he did talk of unspecified “reservations” while referring to the general acceptance of the results of the May 11 elections by all political parties, and was often cheered by desk thumping from both the treasury benches and his own PPP.

Even the Benazir Income Support Programme launched by the previous government, which some PML-N officials have said would be renamed — was not named, with the president referring to it only as a “programme of poverty alleviation and women empowerment”, which he said the poor women wanted to be continued and strengthened further.

Unlike a protest walkout by the then opposition PML-N and JUI-F from the last joint sitting in April last year, it was a very smooth affair this time, as the event came just about three months before the president will run out his five-year term and the results of May 11 elections, which reduced his PPP to a distant second position in the 342-seat National Assembly, ruled out any chance for him to run for a second term.

A presidential aide said the new government, which came into being only five days ago with the election of Mr Sharif by the National Assembly as prime minister and his oath-taking on Wednesday, had no input in drafting the president’s speech.

Mr Zardari raised the issue of subversion of the constitution twice while recalling the July 5, 1977 army coup that toppled PPP prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the Oct 12, 1999 coup that deposed Mr Sharif and regretted that the abrogation, or suspension of the constitution, which he called “high treason”, was “endorsed by the pillars of the state”.

“That must come to end,” he said in an obvious reference to the superior judiciary’s endorsement of the 1977 coup by General Ziaul Haq and the one in 1999 by General Pervez Musharraf due to which, he said, “for decades we have been reeling under the forces of decay”.

The previous PPP-led coalition government had often come under fire from then opposition PML-N for allowing a safe passage to General Musharraf when he went abroad after resigning in 2008 and for not seeking his trial under Article 6 of the constitution for treason, which is punishable with death, for allegedly subverting the constitution, by suspending it and declaring a controversial emergency in November 2007, while his 1999 coup had been upheld on May 12, 2000 by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court bench of which the present chief justice, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, was a member.

Now that a PML-N government has come into being, Mr Zardari seemed to be throwing the ball in its court by choosing the occasion to refer to some recent calls, through public statements and petitions before the Supreme Court, for punishing General Musharraf and his former colleagues for subverting the constitution. He said: “It is for this august parliament and the government to devise an appropriate and wise policy.”

And he promised PPP’s support in what could be a tricky business as none of Pakistan’s four military dictators, who ruled for more than half of its 65-year life, was punished so far for abrogating or suspending the country’s constitution. “I assure you of my support in this,” Mr Zardari said.

While a substantial part of the president’s speech was devoted to recalling the achievements of parliament during the five-year government of his party, including landmark amendments to the constitution that transferred some arbitrary presidential powers to parliament and restored provincial autonomy, the president urged the new government to give high priority to what he called “peace and reconciliation” in the troubled Balochistan province and address the issue of the so-called “missing persons”, who, according to human rights activists, have mostly been picked up by intelligence agencies.

Noting what he called “some progress” made by the government-appointed Commission on Missing Persons, he said “a lot more needs to be done”, and that “it can be done”.

He also spoke of the dire domestic problems such as power shortages and economic hardships and, while citing the launch of Bhasha dam in the north on the River Indus, with a capacity to generate 4,500 megawatts of electricity, and stressing the need to step up energy projects like one to be based on Thar coal, voiced his confidence that “the present government will overcome the challenges”.

Some domestic issues that he cited for action included “a cycle of poverty” that he said must be broken, further strengthening interfaith harmony, need to take measures to prevent misuse of the controversial blasphemy law for settling personal and political scores, integrating the disabled and “special people” in the mainstream of national life, and the need to form a “truth and reconciliation commission” to learn about mistakes of the past.

READY FOR BOTH PEACE AND FIGHT: Apparently as a response to demands from some parties for peace talks with militants mainly operating from hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and causing havoc across the country through suicide attacks, the president restated the policy pursued by the previous government, saying: “We are ready to make peace with those willing to give up violence. But we should also be ready to use force against those who challenge the writ of the state.”

Reiterating the government policy not to allow use of Pakistan’s soil for terrorist activities against another country or violation of “our sovereignty”, he condemned US drone attacks in Fata as a “serious violation of sovereignty and international law” – which are also “counterproductive and are not acceptable” – while speaking of Pakistan’s desire for better ties with the United States and Europe.

His brief observations on foreign policy included comments as a desire to seek “a conducive and stable regional environment” and improve relations with all countries in the region, wishing success to the Afghan-led reconciliation and reconstruction process in Afghanistan, relationship with China to remain “a cornerstone of our foreign policy”, Pakistan “greatly” valuing and to strive to further improve ties with the Muslim world, improving relations with India with peaceful settlement of water disputes and the Kashmir issue “in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people”.

“We also value partnership with the United States and Europe,” the president said, adding: “We need to further strengthen it on the basis of mutual trust, mutual benefit and respect for sovereignty.”

Those listening to the address from the galleries included provincial chief ministers, heads of armed forces and foreign ambassadors.

President Asif Ali Zardari.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Although his political clout has been much diminished by his party’s electoral defeat a month ago, President Asif Ali Zardari will yet make another history with what seems to be his swansong to parliament on Monday.

It will be his record sixth address to a joint sitting of the National Assembly and Senate to open a new parliamentary year, as mandated by the constitution, though the fifth one last year too was a record because no other president had addressed so many joint sittings before him. And it will be his last such address as he runs out his five-year presidential term in September.

In his last speech to a joint sitting on March 17, 2012, Mr Zardari had talked proudly about four years’ achievements of the coalition government of then-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, led by his PPP, and about what must be done in the last and fifth year of that government’s term, disregarding some protest shouting and a walkout by then-opposition PML-N and JUI-F. He might do somewhat similar this time as well though he was not expected so say much about the plans of the new PML-N government, whose prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, took over only on Wednesday and formed a cabinet on Friday.

However, a political source close to the presidency told Dawn that while the speech would be authored by the president himself, its text would be shown to people concerned in the new government before its delivery in the joint sitting, which is due to begin at the Parliament House at 4.30pm.

But whatever its contents, the president’s address would hardly carry the force of his joint sitting speeches in the past when his word weighed over everybody else in the government and he also held the key office of PPP co-chairman, despite the transfer of most of presidential executive powers to parliament, or prime minister, through the landmark Eighteenth Amendment to the constitution that he had helped to come about.

He gave up the party office this year after court challenges and the PPP too has been reduced to a distant second position in the National Assembly, from first in the previous house, after its rout in the May 11 elections in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan —though retaining its hold in Sindh.

And contrary to last year’s protests, mainly over power cuts and law and order, the sitting this time is expected to be a much calmer affair.

The PML-N and its allied parties, some of which had also been PPP allies in the previous government, would be expected to ensure a smooth sitting, which has been convened at the new prime minister’s own advice.

While the PPP is now the main opposition party in both houses, the PTI, thrown up as the second largest opposition party in the National Assembly in the May 11 vote, is unlikely to cause any problem, though its chairman Imran Khan, who is yet to come the new lower house because he is still convalescing from some serious injuries suffered during a campaign accident, had vowed before the elections that if he were elected prime minister he would not take oath of office from President Zardari and would find some alternative route.

PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who had been foreign minister in the PPP government before resigning in February 2011, said his party’s lawmakers would listen to the president’s “point of view in accordance with parliamentary etiquette” and comment on it afterwards.

The PML-N chief, whose party was the main rival to the PPP, expressed no such reservations and took oath from Mr Zardari at an unusually cordial ceremony on Wednesday after praising, in his first speech to the new National Assembly, a smooth transition from one elected government to another.

It was some abhorrence of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for the National Assembly that gave Mr Zardari an extra sixth chance, instead of five, to address a joint sitting. Gen Musharraf, now detained at his farmhouse in Islamabad facing criminal charges, including responsibility in the Dec 27, 2007, assassination of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and detention of superior court judges after he declared a controversial emergency in November 2007, addressed a joint sitting as president only once in 2004, in the face of strong opposition protests, and never came to parliament again.

He did not call a joint sitting even after the February 2008 elections and that constitutional requirement was fulfilled by President Zardari.

New Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif looks on after inspecting a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the Prime Minister House in Islamabad on June 5, 2013. — Photo by AFP

•National leadership should be on ‘same page’ •Road, rail links to be developed between Gwadar and Kashgar • Drone attacks should be stopped •Achakzai wants action against Musharraf and others who were behind his illegal moves

ISLAMABAD: Voted prime minister by the new National Assembly on Wednesday for a record third term, Nawaz Sharif proposed making a “common agenda” with political allies and foes to wade through a “jungle of problems” that he said had grown in Pakistan.

In a speech to the assembly immediately after being elected leader of the house by more than two-thirds majority and over three hours before being sworn in by President Asif Ali Zardari at the presidency, he cited electricity shortages, law and order, poverty, corruption, agricultural and industrial progress and building infrastructure among the major priorities that he said his PML-N government would tackle without relent.

But contrary to media speculations that he would do it, he withheld details of what he called a “comprehensive plan” prepared to tackle these problems, saying they would be disclosed in an address on an unspecified later date.

The main focus of his 30-minute speech to a packed house and overflowing and often noisy visitors’ galleries was on domestic problems and his professed desire to reach out to leaders of all political parties represented in parliament to share one another’s thoughts and giving federal cooperation to all provincial governments no matter which party governed there.

“They should either share our vision or we will share their vision,” he said about leaders who he said he would contact “very soon”.

“Let us make a common agenda about how to extricate the country from its difficulties,” he said, stressing that “we all need to be on the same page” — political parties and other stake-holders — to solve national problems.

And the new prime minister seemed echoing the views of President Zardari by acknowledging that the enormity of Pakistan’s “so many problems” was beyond the strength of a single party and said: “If we get together all these problems can be resolved. Let us get together for the sake of Pakistan.”

Mr Sharif, whose induction as prime minister ended more than 13 years in wilderness since being toppled in the Oct 12, 1999, coup by then army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf, secured 244 votes in the election through the parliamentary mode of open division — by recording one’s preference in a register placed in different lobbies rather that secret ballot — with a token contest from Makhdoom Amin Fahim, parliamentary leader of the previously ruling PPP who got 42 votes and Makhdoom Javed Hashmi of PTI who got 31.

That winning total, including new support from the 23-seat former PPP ally MQM and some other smaller groups, was 14 votes less than 258 votes each received by PML-N’s Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi on Monday when the PPP had voted for them after withdrawing its own candidates for the two offices while the MQM and PTI had put up their own candidates for the offices.

FOREIGN POLICY: Mr Sharif spoke very little about his government’s foreign policy plans except a fleeting reference to US drone attacks on suspected militant hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), which he said should stop, and what he called a proposed plan to build rail and road links from the fabled Chinese town of Kashgar to Gwadar port in Balochistan, which he said he had discussed with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang when Mr Li visited Pakistan last month.

While praising the PPP government’s decision to hand over the port’s management to a Chinese state-run company, he did not talk about a recent agreement of that government with Iran to build a pipeline to bring natural gas, or about the fate of Mr Musharraf, his nemesis now in jail facing several charges, including an alleged responsibility for the 2007 assassination of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto and detention of judges of superior courts whom he sacked after declaring a controversial emergency in November 2007.

But Mr Fahim took up the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline issue in his speech to congratulate Mr Sharif and said that important project, which is opposed by the United States on grounds of US economic sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme, should be implemented.

The reference to drone attacks came after Mr Sharif talked about the need to eliminate lawlessness and militancy, without naming Taliban or touching speculated plans to negotiate peace with them, when he said international concerns had to be addressed to see a halt to frequent drone attacks.

Amidst cheers from the galleries, he said while Pakistan respected sovereignty of other countries, its sovereignty must also be respected and for this also he called for a “joint course of action”.

HOOLIGANISM: The historic ceremony of the first smooth transition to a new elected government from another that completed its full five-year term and Mr Sharif becoming the first Pakistani to become prime minister for the third time was somewhat marred by hooliganism by scores of apparent PML-N supporters who tried to storm into the house galleries, including the press gallery where they roughed up some journalists who objected to their intrusion.

The incident brought the new speaker to the press gallery to get it vacated from the intruders and an apology later by him in the house, besides protests by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf members Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Shireen Mazari, who said she feared a threat to members’ security as visitors who failed to enter the galleries continued banging doors and shouting slogans even during Mr Sharif’s speech.

Mr Sharif, who stayed in the house during congratulatory speeches from some major parties before the house was prorogued after a three-day session, said he would not let his team sit idle nor himself indulge in that luxury in search of solutions to problems.

Talking about corruption, he said heads and boards of governors of state enterprises would be appointed on merit and advertisements to bring talent would be placed in international media.

Mr Fahim, like most others who followed him, promised support to Mr Sharif’s government in its steps for national good but vowed to oppose it when seen doing otherwise.

But, while speaking of “some role of (intelligence) agencies” in the defeat of his party outside Sindh, he advised the new government to refrain from undemocratic methods like those of formation of an anti-PPP Islami Jamhoori Ittehad allegedly by these agencies in 1990 and what he called offers made to him by Mr Musharraf to induct his son as Sindh chief minister and for an unspecified “pagri”, or high position, to him if the Makhdoom family quit the PPP.

Mr Fahim named a former prime minister under Mr Musharraf, Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who was present in the house on a PML-N front bench, for repeating the offer on behalf of the military ruler. Mr Jamali remained quiet.

PTI’s Javed Hashmi, who vowed “opposition for speaking truth” rather than being a friendly opposition, made a sentimental reference to his previous association with the PML-N, saying: “Nawaz Sharif had been my leader and is (my) leader”.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Mahmood Khan Achakzai wanted action not only against Musharraf for his acts but also against all those who had supported him, including judges, lawyers and media persons, and demanded compensation for judges, or their scions, for wrongs done to them for opposing military takeovers in the past.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar called his party as an opposition party despite having voted for Mr Sharif and said it would support all good actions of the government and would oppose any anti-people actions or policies.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which headed the previous coalition government for a full five-year term as the largest single party in the then lower house but was reduced to nearly a third of its size in the disastrous May 11 elections, said it had withdrawn its own candidates and voted for the PML-N’s Sardar Ayaz Sadiq for speaker and Murtaza Javed Abbasi for deputy speaker as a gesture not to make their offices controversial.

But the two candidates faced a token contest in the secret ballot from Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI), which emerged as the third largest party in the new house, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a PPP ally in the previous government.

Mr Sadiq, a soft-spoken businessman from Lahore who earned some across-the-board respect for his work in the previous house’s committees, polled 258 votes out of the 313 lawmakers who voted, defeating PTI’s Shaharyar Afridi and MQM’s S.A. Iqbal Qadri , who got 38 and 23 votes respectively while one vote was declared invalid, in the election overseen by outgoing speaker Fehmida Mirza of the PPP.

Mr Abbasi also won by the same margin against PTI’s Munazza Hassan and MQM’s Kishwar Zehra though one vote less was cast in the deputy speaker’s election, which was overseen by Mr Sadiq after he was administered oath as speaker by Dr Mirza.

Earlier, possible after some backstage contact, the PPP withdrew the candidatures of its veteran lawmaker Nawab Yousuf Talpur from Sindh for speaker and Ghulam Rasool Koreja from Punjab for deputy speaker Just before the outgoing speaker called for balloting for the new speaker after administering oath to some more new members of the house — 301 had taken oath on the first day of the session on Satuday — Mehmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), created a stir in the house by raising a question as to how the assembly could fulfil its oath to defend the country’s constitution while the house was “full of people who had supported the previous dictator”.

He sought a commitment by all parties never to support violation of the constitution, and said: “At least Nawaz League, the PPP and PTI should make a pledge not to give membership to any person who had supported dictatorship.”

That seemed to have caused some unease on PML-N front benches, with some senior leaders apparently seeking advice from Mr Sharif about how to respond, though it was not clear whether the swipe was directed at some individuals or at one or more parties where numerous former loyalists of military dictators like General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf had taken refuge, won election with their tickets or joined them after winning the election as independents.

But the outburst of Mr Achakzai, whose party is about to be part of a coalition government in Balochistan province along with PML-N, seemed likely to encourage finger-pointing at PML-N leadership as well as some likely future cabinet ministers.

While Mr Sharif, the prime minister-in-waiting and a one-time protégé of Gen Zia, remained quiet, two of his close colleagues, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Khawaja Mohammad Asif sprang to action to voice agreement with Mr Achakzai but they seemed to deflect his call for an immediate pledge.

Chaudhry Nisar, who was leader of opposition in the previous house, recalled that oaths had been taken and broken for the past 65 years of Pakistan’s life, and called “self-analysis” and respecting every lawmaker’s mandate in the present difficult period facing the country.

Khawaja Asif earlier called for making a “break with the past” and, while apparently condoning what had happened in the past, said “some step must be taken” in this respect Mr Amin Fahim, the PPP’s parliamentary leader in the house, spoke twice, recalling sacrifices of his party and its leaders like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto to oppose dictatorship and said his party would “stand like a wall” against any future attempt to impose dictatorship.

While pledges to oppose dictatorship also came from PTI leaders Javed Hashmir and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, former prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who, when in office, once proudly declared Gen Musharraf as “my boss” and joined the PML-N only recently after being elected an independent, seemed quite angry with the discourse outside the day’s agenda and said: “We have also come here with some mandate and now we are being asked to seek another mandate.”

Disagreement was apparent also from General Zia’s son Ejaz-ul-Haq, who has assured support to PML-N after being elected to the house on his own from Punjab, as he saw “nothing new” in Mr Achakzai’s “sentiment” and said the constitution also required protection of the country’s independence and sovereignty “which are now under attack”.

In another speech afterwards, Mr Achakzai demanded an official inquiry now into the May 12, 2007, massacre in Karachi during a visit there by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, then under suspension, to implement a commitment made by an All Parties Dermocratic Movement conference held in London before the 2008 elections with participants including Mr Sharif, PTI chief Imran Khan and the late Jamaat-i-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed.

In remarks before leaving her chair, Dr Mirza recalled achievements of the house under her stewardship, as the Islamic world’s first parliamentary Speaker, like historic constitutional amendments and “creating a balance” between political and state institutions, and said she was handing over to a new speaker with a “sense of satisfaction”.

Mr Sadiq too paid tribute to his predecessor’s wisdom and said he too would run the house impartially and ensure high efficiency and austerity.

He later adjourned the house until 11am on Wednesday, when the house will elect the new prime minister, for which nomination papers must be filed by 2pm on Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD, June 1: On the surface, it was all cordiality and little rancour about the May 11 elections as the new elected National Assembly was formally born with an oath on Saturday, heralding the return of a potentially thumping rightist rule.

Nawaz Sharif, president of the victorious PML-N, sat only inches away from the prime minister’s seat he is to take with his certain election to the office four days later after more than 13 years of political wilderness.

“Prime minister Nawaz Sharif”, his supporters packing the visitors’ galleries chanted repeatedly during more than two hours of the sitting marking the start of a five-year term of the country’s 14th lower house.

With PML-N emerging as the largest party in the 342-seat house and going beyond the simple majority with several independents joining it, Mr Sharif is set to be elected on Wednesday as leader of the house to become the first Pakistani to take the prime minister’s office for the third time, after his two ill-fated terms in the 1990s were cut short, first by a political intrigue in 1993 and then by an army coup in 1999.

It was a completely transformed house that took oath on Saturday, with the PML-N gaining the majority from its second position in the previous house, in which the PPP was the largest – but much short of simple majority – that governed for five years in coalition with both former friends and foes, including some months together with the PML-N, becoming Pakistan’s first elected government to complete its full constitutional tenure under a civilian set-up.

Behind the smiles and pleasantries, while PML-N members seemed to be brimming with joy and those of the PPP looked out of sorts because of their party’s humiliation at the hands of what its assassinated leader used to call in the 1990s as “remnants of Ziaul Haq”.

Many of them are in victors’ list, from pro-business Nawaz Sharif downwards, committed to right-wing policies.

NO RANCOUR: Unlike the bitterness between the political rivals seen in the 1990s, and despite the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, the newly emerged third force, snatching all but a couple of seats the PPP had won in the PML-N powerbase of Punjab in 2008, both the PML-N and PPP showed an unusual cordiality during the oath taking, with Mr Sharif and PPP’s would-be opposition leader Khurshid Ahmed Shah taking turns to go to each other’s desks to shake hands in the beginning of the proceedings and after signing the roll of members.

While Mr Sharif received the day’s loudest applause by desk thumping by party colleagues and allies and clapping in the galleries, Mr Shah, who has been a popular trouble-shooter in the previous house as the PPP chief whip, was applauded apparently by all sections of the house and a solitary “Jeay Bhutto” slogan from a gallery when he was called upon to go to the rostrum to sign the roll.

So was outgoing Speaker Fehmida Mirza when she signed the roll in Urdu alphabetical order after administering a combined oath to 301 lawmakers – out of a total of 314 who were invited. Several newly elected members have to vacate one of two or more lower house seats won by them, or vacate a National Assembly seat to opt for one in a provincial assembly, elections for nine constituencies are still to be held and a decision about 10 reserved seats for women from Punjab is still awaited.

And it fell to the lot of Dr Mirza, who became the Islamic world’s first female parliamentary speaker when elected to the office in 2008, to earn a unique honour also in administering – and, at the same time, herself taking – the oath by reading out the Urdu text of the oath with feminine gender like “halaf uthati hoon” (I take the oath) or “… karoongi”.

In all previous assemblies, oaths were administered either by a male speaker or a senior male member of the house.

Notable absenters from the ceremony were PTI chairman Imran Khan, who is still convalescing in Lahore from serious injuries he suffered in a fall during an election campaign rally, his party vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Imran Khan was elected from three constituencies, but his party announced on Saturday that he would retain his seat from Rawalpindi and vacate the remaining two from Peshawar and Mianwali, while PTI president Javed Hashmi, elected from two constituencies, would retain the seat in his home town of Multan and quit the one in Islamabad.

The oath-taking, which began nearly two hours late because of a PML-N parliamentary party meeting, was held amid strict security around the parliament house, which saw a traffic jam near the building because of a rush of visitors, who also overcrowded the house galleries.

Before adjourning it until 11am on Monday, the speaker reminded the house of the schedule for the election of a new speaker and deputy speaker by secret ballot, which she will oversee on the same day, for which nomination papers must be submitted to the house secretary by 12 noon on Sunday.

The prime minister’s election, on Wednesday through what is called division in parliamentary parlance requiring house members to openly go to different lobbies to record their votes, will be overseen by the new speaker, with 2pm on Tuesday being the deadline for submitting nominations.

A view of the National Assembly. — File photo

ISLAMABAD, May 28: As he still seemed reeling from his party’s rout in the May 11 elections, President Asif Ali Zardari summoned on Tuesday the new National Assembly for June 1 to begin a parliament process to install victors.

Quite some landmarks are on the cards in the process, culminating next week in Mian Nawaz Sharif, president of the victorious Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), taking over as prime minister in continuation of an historic, democratic transition in the country’s chequered life, about half of it under military rule.

The Saturday sitting, called as advised by caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso and due to begin at 10am with oath-taking by the newly elected lawmakers, will mark the beginning of a five-year term of the new 342-seat house, succeeding one that completed its full term for the first time in the country under a civilian set-up despite a split mandate.

This time, the PML-N will have a comfortable majority of its own to be able to govern — though power-sharing deals have been made with some smaller parties — unlike its predecessor, President Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), that lacked those numbers and depended on often-unpredictable coalition partners.

No schedule for the remainder of the session has been formally announced by the National Assembly secretariat except that the oath to new lawmakers will be administered by the previous assembly’s speaker, Fehmida Mirza of the PPP, who, as required by law, retained her office even after the house stood dissolved on March 16 at the end of its term.

But according to a time-frame divulged to journalists by the caretaker government’s information minister, Arif Nizami, on Monday, the house will elect its new speaker and deputy speaker on June 3 and prime minister on June 5, when the term of the caretaker government comes to an end.

Mr Sharif, nominated by his party to be prime minister for the third time in about 22 years and with his election being a foregone conclusion because of the PML-N numbers in the house, will be the first Pakistani to take that job for as many times.

Former PPP leader Benazir Bhutto was denied the potential of that distinction by her Dec 27, 2007, assassination in Rawalpindi in the midst of an election campaign, and when the PPP emerged the single largest in the previous National Assembly in a delayed February 2008 vote, Mr Zardari, as co-chairman and effective party leader, handpicked Yousaf Raza Gilani to take the office that would have gone to her wife if she were alive.

Despite the historic nature of such a smooth transfer of power never seen before in more than 65 years of Pakistan’s life — 33 under four military rulers — the capital has missed the kind of drama it saw after the 2008 vote. Then Mr Zardari, much before his election as president, held court for weeks at his private Islamabad residence for the prime ministerial choice and coalition arrangements with the PML-N, which, as the second largest party in the house, stayed in Mr Gilani’s cabinet for months while the PPP remained part of the PML-N’s Punjab provincial government for three years.

This time, no such back-stage activity was seen in Islamabad until now. Mr Sharif has been planning his moves from his luxurious house at Raiwind, near Lahore, to the exclusion of the PPP, which has been routed in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, though retaining its dominance of Sindh and likely to have the consolation of getting the office of leader of opposition in the National Assembly as the second largest party there.

Also, Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, whose stunning performance gave it second highest popular vote nationally and the third place in the National Assembly, remained confined first to hospital and then to his home in Lahore while convalescing from serious injuries suffered in a fall at a campaign rally, but guiding from there his party’s plans on matters like leading a coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, put up a token challenge in prime minister’s election and pursuing complaints of election rigging, particularly in Lahore.

Similarly, just before the election victors arrive in Islamabad, a shocked president Zardari chose to go to his Karachi residence rather than be at the presidency here, to ponder what went wrong for his party in the election — besides the public anger against power shortages, high prices and militant threats of violence against liberal parties — and why most voters disregarded his and previous government’s historic role in restoring a genuine parliamentary system, giving more autonomy to provinces and curtailing arbitrary presidential powers.

But he will have to be in Islamabad to administer oath of office to a new prime minister, who is to be the man he taunted in a famous June 21, 2011, speech at Naudero with a remark, “learn politics from us”, as he assailed Mr Sharif for allegedly following of Gen Ziaul Haq, of whom the PML-N leader had once been a protégé.