Raza Rabbani | Pakistan

Former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani has called on the National Assembly (NA) speaker and Senate chairman to appoint opposition leaders in both houses of Parliament, saying that leaving the posts vacant “sidelines dissent”. The posts have been lying vacant since August last year, when then-opposition leaders in the NA and Senate — PTI’s Omar Ayub and Shibli Faraz — were disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan following their conviction in cases related to riots on May 9, 2023. The PTI has nominated Pakhtun­khwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai as the opposition leader for the NA and Majlis Wahdat-i-Musl­imeen’s Allama Raja Nasir Abbas for the Senate slot, but their notification remains pending. Rabbani pointed out in a statement on Monday that “Parliament is incomplete”, adding that “this exposes a contradiction in our democracy”. “We talk of the supremacy of Parliament, yet less inclined to uphold this principle,” he added. Saying that the “political system is already strained by pola...

PPP stalwart and former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani has warned that the government’s proposed constitutional changes could effectively undo the landmark 18th Amendment.

PPP stalwart and former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani on Tuesday said the recently proposed changes to the Constitution, if passed, would amount to a rollback of the much-touted 18th Amendment. Yesterday, the ruling party PML-N’s coalition partner PPP revealed it had been approached by the government for its support in passing a 27th Constitutional Amendment. The key features were heavily criticised by lawyers and politicians, who termed them an attempt to revoke provincial rights granted in the 18th Amendment. “The proposed constitutional amendments of the federal government, with reference to provincial autonomy, amount to a rollback of the 18th Amendment,” Rabbani said in a statement. The 18th Amendment, passed in 2010, had allayed provinces’ concerns by devolving several ministries and departments from the Centre to them, including education and population. “In the brittle internal political situation, playing with provincial autonomy will cast deep shadows over the federation,” the veteran politician warn...

Former Senate chairperson Raza Rabbani emphasised on Monday that the federal government should “immediately” take parliament into confidence on its “new US policy”, particularly mentioning media reports about the sale of rare minerals and the supposed plan to offer Pasni port to Washington. “The federal government has not taken the people or parliament into confidence on the dynamics of the new relationship with the United States,” Rabbani stated in a press release. He added, “It is the right of the people to know the details and the direction of the foreign policy. In history, the US has never been a reliable friend to depend upon.” On the sale of precious and rare minerals to American metals company US Strategic Metals (USSM), he said it was “unfortunate” that information about the deal had come through the media. He stressed that “real stakeholders” in this matter were the provinces, which should have been taken into confidence through the Council of Common Interests. “The federal government fails to reali...