LAHORE: A total of 97 politicians, including 86 lawmakers from the country’s national and provincial assemblies, have tested virus positive while six have lost their lives since the outbreak of the COVID-19 in Pakistan, political party representatives said
The politicians who have tested positive belong to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and various other political parties.
“Most of the MNAs who tested positive did not inform the secretariat,” Mehboob Gurmani, director general media at the national assembly secretariat, told Arab News over the phone. “So we learned about them from the media,” which is why the department does not have a complete official list of the infected legislators.
While some lawmakers were tested from a health facility in the parliament, others got their tests done privately, he went on. Gurmani further confirmed that 40 staff members of the national assembly had also contracted the virus as of June 12.
Separately, Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, who is overlooking the data for the coronavirus program, told Arab News that his department has not till yet kept a count of politicians hit by the respiratory disease in the country.
Since February 26, when the first COVID-19 case was reported in Pakistan, the virus has become a major threat to members of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. To date, 36 PTI leaders have contracted the virus and two have died, confirmed Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, the information secretary of the party.
The second most affected political faction is the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 23 lawmakers and office bearers, according to the Attaullah Tarar, the general deputy secretary of the PML-N, who had himself tested positive and has since then recovered. The political party has also lost one of its lawmakers to the deadly disease.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has till now eight COVID-19 cases, Saeed Ghani, a senior PPP leader, told Arab News. It too has lost one parliamentarian.
In fact Ghani was the first lawmaker to announce self-quarantine in Pakistan, March 23. He made the announcement on Twitter.
Since then, several high profile names have also tested positive, including Sheikh Rasheed, the federal minister for railways, two former prime ministers, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Yusuf Raza Gilani, Shehbaz Sharif, the leader of the opposition, Shehryar Khan Afridi, a state minister, and Asad Qaiser, the National Assembly speaker.
Sharif, who also remained the Punjab chief minister multiple times in the past, wrote a series of tweets after contracting COVID-19, wherein he said that he had been extremely careful, had confined himself to his residence and was conducting his meetings online.
However, he continued that there had been “a couple of unavoidable outings recently like the appearance before NAB (National Accountability Bureau)” since the country’s anti-corruption watchdog called him to its office while probing a corruption case.
Until now, the virus has claimed the lives of five provincial lawmakers: Syed Fazal Agha (Balochistan); Shaheena Raza (Punjab); Jamshed Uddin Kakakhel (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa); Shaukat Manzoor Cheema (Punjab); and Ghulam Murtaza Baloch (Sindh), as confirmed by the respective party leaders.
Munir Orakzai, a National Assembly member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, lost his life on June 2, though he was thought to have recovered from the disease after contracting the virus in early April and was brought to attend a parliamentary session in a wheelchair. His family said he had died of a cardiac arrest, and his demise was confirmed by a prime minister’s adviser, Shahbaz Gill, on Twitter.
In addition to the above numbers, 30 lawmakers and politicians from various other political parties have also tested positive. These include the religious-politico party Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (F), and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM), Awani National Party (ANP), Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Muttahida Majlis–e–Amal (MMA), Awami Muslim League, Balochistan National Party (BNP), and independent legislators.
In order to stem the flow of new cases, the government has approved historic changes in the seating arrangement and voting process in the lower and upper houses of parliament. The new rules mandate that members follow social distancing and take other safety measures during sessions.
For the first time in the country’s history, the annual fiscal budget was presented on June 12 in a controlled environment with only 25 percent lawmakers allowed to sit in the House.
Pakistan has a total of 1,195 members in its Senate, National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.
