ISLAMABAD, March 25, 2019: The Provincial Assembly of Balochistan adopted two resolutions amid Opposition protest while Points of Order consumed 72 percent of proceedings on Monday, says Free and Fair Election Network in its Daily Factsheet.

Following are key observations of the House proceeding during first sitting of the tenth session:

Members’ Participation

• The House met for three hours and 53 minutes including an hour and 19 minutes of prayers break.
• The sitting started at 1656 hours against the scheduled time of 1600 hours.
• The Speaker presided over the entire sitting while the Deputy Speaker was also present.
• The Leader of the House was absent.
• The Leader of the Opposition attended the entire sitting.
• As many as 31 MPAs (48%) were present at the outset while 22 (34%) at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of ANP, HDP, BNP-M, MMAP and PkMAP attended the proceeding.
• All three minority lawmakers attended the sitting.

Output   

• Moved by BAP lawmaker, the House adopted a resolution condemning the mass shooting in Christchurch Mosques and paid tribute to the victims as well as New Zealand’s Prime Minister for her sympathies and support to the Muslim Community. The mover spoke on the resolution for one minute.
• Moved by ANP lawmaker, the House also adopted a joint resolution demanding the Provincial Government to approach Federal Government for giving charge of two main roads in district Ziarat to the National Highways Authority. Two lawmakers debated the resolution for seven minutes.
• The House deferred legislative business appearing on the agenda due to Opposition protest.

Representation and Responsiveness

• The House did not hold Question Hour.
• Submitted by ANP and PkMAP lawmakers, the House admitted two identical Adjournment Motions regarding incident of firing on the check post of Balochistan Levies in district Ziarat for discussion in next sitting.
• A Calling Attention Notice regarding ban imposed by the Higher Education Department on political activities in colleges across the province remained unaddressed.

Order and Institutionalization

• As many as 17 lawmakers raised Points of Order (POs) consuming an hour and 52 minutes of the proceeding. The lawmakers discussed non-provision of funds, misbehavior of Frontier Corps personnel with lawmaker and abduction and forced conversion of two Hindu girls in Sindh through POs.
• The Opposition parties staged a token walkout against the government for alleged discriminatory distribution of funds among districts.
• The Opposition parties protested on floor of the House for 16 minutes against the non-provision of funds as per approved PSDP.          
• The House was adjourned to meet again on March 28, 2019 (Thursday) at 1600 hours.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• The attendance of lawmakers was not available to the observers and media.

This daily factsheet is based on direct observation of the Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD) – a member organization of FAFEN. Errors and omissions are excepted.