After PTI, BNP-M claims lawmakers under pressure to vote for ‘constitutional package’

The chief of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), Akhtar Mengal, has claimed that two senators of his party were being “pressurised” to vote in favour of a highly anticipated “constitutional package”.
The “constitutional package” is a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution that aims to — among other things — fix the tenure of the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) at three years.
With sessions of both houses of the parliament summoned this evening (Saturday) with only an hour’s gap, the legislation seems set to be introduced in the parliament today.

A constitutional amendment is passed or rejected through open ballot, in which those who go against their parties’ stance cannot conceal their vote.
While speaking to DawnNewsTV programme Doosra Rukh on Friday, the BNP-M leader said that the houses of two of his party’s senators were being raided.
“There is Senator Muhammad Qasim whose house was raided and even now, in Karachi, intelligence agencies’ cars are patrolling his house,” Mengal alleged.
“Our second senator Nasima Ehsaan has said that her relatives and her husband are being pressurised,” he added.
He said Ehsaan was threatened that her property would be confiscated, adding that the government was only having “this kind of communication” with the party.
“But no formal communication took place,” the BNP-M chief said.
Mengal added that the government wanted to bring about the constitutional amendment by either keeping the people unaware of it or by using force.
Opposition parties — including the PTI, BNP-M and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) — have warned their members that they could be unseated from parliament if they voted in favour of the proposed constitutional package.
Speaking to reporters, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan stated that since there was no cabinet meeting to approve the constitutional package, it could not legally be presented in the National Assembly.
“According to Rules 16 and 27 of the Rules of Business, the government has to move the bill through the parliament and ministry of law and then present it to the cabinet,” Gohar said. “If the cabinet approves the bill, it has to be approved by the PM and be presented to parliament.”
“However, there was no cabinet meeting to approve the bill, nor was it on the agenda,” he argued. “The bill therefore cannot be moved; it is illegal and contravenes the Rules of Business and the Constitution.”
The PTI chairman lamented that the opposition had “demanded that the government make legislation in the open,” but they were not doing that.
Earlier this week, senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser accused the government of using strong-arm tactics to bully its opponents into supporting the constitutional package, hours before before police took the PTI’s top leadership into custody over a case pertaining to its Sept 8 rally.
Speaking on a point of order in the NA on Monday, Qaiser had said his party’s lawmakers were being “coerced” to support the government’s legislative package and asked deputy speaker Ghulam Mustafa Shah to intervene.
“We have been receiving complaints from our MNAs. They are constantly receiving threats. They are being coerced to support a legislative package which the government is bringing [to the parliament],” said Qaiser, who had served as the NA speaker during the Imran Khan government.
He had also alleged that some opposition members were being lured with different offers.
While on the face of it, it is still not certain whether the ruling coalition has the numbers required to secure the passage of the constitutional amendment, which requires the assent of at least two-thirds of lawmakers — around 224 votes out of a total of 336 members in the lower house.
But as of now, it appears that the government is short of at least a dozen votes in both houses.
However, if posturing by government spokespersons is anything to go by, the Shehbaz Sharif-led administration seems confident it will be able to secure the required number of votes to have the amendment passed.
Although the officially issued agenda for the NA session does not include any mention of the amendment, experience has shown that such items are usually laid before the house as part of a supplementary agenda.

Despite attempts by opposition parties at enforcing strict discipline among their ranks, it is rumoured that the government had managed to win over some PTI-allied lawmakers who are apparently willing to jump ship to lend their support to the ruling coalition.
The government has also been trying its best to woo JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman — a long-time ally of the Sharifs.
If he does indeed lend his support to the “constitutional package”, the government will be in a commanding position in the Senate, but would still be short of around four to five votes in the National Assembly.