Opposition bid to restrict disqualified persons from holding party office foiled by govt

The h National i l Assembly bl on Tuesday d rejected jd — b by a margin i of 98 for, 163 against — a bill presented by PPP lawmaker Syed Naveed Qamar that sought to remove Section 203 from the Elections Act 2017. The clause had allowed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to retake his position as the president of PML-N following his disqualification by the Supreme Court (SC) on grounds that he was not ‘honest’. “Someone who is not sadiq truthful@ and ameen honest@ in the view of the apex court should not be eligible to hold party office,” Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi observed while throwing his weight behind the legislation. He said the rule had been introduced because “a party head controls the party’s policies” and criticised Prime Minister Shahid .haqan Abbasi for allowing it to be dismantled, saying: “It is evident that the incumbent prime minister toes the line of the former prime minister.” “The insertion of Section 203 is a direct confrontation with the Supreme Court and in conflict with the Constitution,” he said. Qureshi also said that any legislation which only facilitates a particular individual cannot be termed “good legislation”. “Your party has been ruling for the past 30 years. Isn’t there one person in your party@ who is eligible to head it@ according to Article 62 of the Constitution@?” he asked. “Can you not even trust your brother? Can you not trust a senior parliamentarian like Nisar Ali .han?” Qureshi added. Opposing the bill, Law Minister Zahid Hamid said the real irony was that those belonging to the party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were opposing a move similar to one condoned by him.He explained that the conditions for disqualification of political personality had been introduced through Section 5 of the Political Parties Act of 1962. “When Bhutto came into power, the said article was removed in 1975 and no one objected until 2000,” Hamid said. “In 2000, then@ President Musharraf introduced the Political Parties Order 2000 because he wanted to keep Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif out,” the law minister claimed.