ISLAMABAD: Pakistani interior minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday warned of imposing governor rule in Punjab if he was restricted from entering the province, which is now ruled by a chief minister backed by ousted premier Imran Khan, the main opponent of the ruling party in the center.
Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, a Khan ally, on Wednesday took oath as chief minister of Punjab, hours after Pakistan’s top court ruled to hand control of the country’s most populous province to him.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial ruled on Tuesday evening that Elahi had been wrongfully denied victory in a vote last week by the speaker of the Punjab assembly, who disregarded votes cast in Elahi’s favor on the basis that they were against party line and instead handed victory to the candidate of the ruling coalition, outgoing CM Hamza Shahbaz.
The court overturned the speaker’s July 22 decision.
“The interior ministry has to present the summary of governor rule and I have started working on it,” the minister said while addressing a news conference here in Islamabad. “If my entry is banned [in Punjab], this will be a sufficient justification for the imposition of governor rule.”
The federal government can impose governor rule in a province, handing over all administrative powers to the governor for six months, in case the provincial government fails to tackle a ‘grave emergency.’ Under governor rule, the chief minister and his cabinet lose all administrative powers and virtually stand suspended.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party quickly responded to Sanaullah’s presser, saying there was now a “rule of the public” in Punjab.
“They can dare to impose governor rule, but won’t be able to bear the public backlash for even two hours,” Farrukh Habib, the PTI’s secretary information, said in a statement.
During the presser, Sanaullah also criticized the Supreme Court’s Tuesday verdict, saying it had “destabilized the politics and economy.”
“Nobody talks about cutting powers of the judiciary rather the powers should be regulated,” he said.
About the jurisdiction and control of the federal government after losing Punjab to the PTI, he said the federal government was a coalition government, which had governments in Sindh and Balochistan.
About his party chief Nawaz Sharif’s return from self-imposed exile in London, the minister said Sharif would come back “at any cost and will lead election campaign on behalf of [ruling party] PML-N.”
In the July 22 election for Punjab CM, Elahi, backed by Khan’s PTI and it’s ally, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), had bagged 186 votes, while the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) nominee Hamza Shahbaz had secured 179 votes in the provincial house of 371. Shahbaz is the son of PM Sharif.
However, Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari rejected 10 PML-Q votes on the basis of a recent Supreme Court verdict that endorsed the idea of disqualifying legislators for voting against party lines. Mazari quoted a letter written to him by PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, asking his party’s lawmakers to support Shahbaz instead of Elahi.
In its 11-page verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that the deputy speaker’s ruling was “void, without lawful authority and of no legal effect.”
“In consequence of the above … Chaudhry Parvez Elahi is declared as the duly elected Chief Minister, Punjab,” Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial announced in the high-profile case.
The court directed the Punjab chief secretary to “immediately and forthwith” issue a notification to declare Elahi as the elected chief minister of the province. Likewise, the court declared that the oath of the office administered to Hamza Shehbaz “was and is without lawful authority and of no legal effect.”
Elahi’s election will give Khan’s campaign for early elections a shot in the arm. General elections are scheduled for August next year.
The tug of war between Khan and his opponents comes while the coalition government struggles to restart a tough IMF bailout program and as Pakistan faces falling foreign exchange reserves, a widening current account deficit and a sharply depreciating currency.
The July 22 election was held on the directions of the Supreme Court after 25 members of former premier Imran Khan’s PTI party were disqualified for voting for the rival PML-N candidate, Shahbaz, in an April election for the same post.
In a unanimous decision in May, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had said the PTI dissidents were being de-seated for defecting from the party under Article 63-A. The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in its interpretation of Article 63-A, has said votes cast against the party direction “cannot be counted and must be disregarded.”
According to Article 63-A of the constitution, a parliamentarian can be disqualified on grounds of defection if he or she “votes or abstains from voting in the House contrary to any direction issued by the parliamentary party to which he belongs, in relation to election of the prime minister or chief minister; or a vote of confidence or a vote of no-confidence; or a money bill or a Constitution (amendment) bill.”
