F.P. Report
Islamabad: Senator Farhatullah Babar today urged Chairman Senate to announce in the House the ruling on trichotomy of powers reserved by the chair after a comprehensive debate in which expressed their apprehension over the shifting power balance away from the elected Parliament.
Power is continuously shifting away from the civilian structures of the state as invisible forces are relentlessly busy re-writing the political and parliamentary narrative and it is critical that an appropriate ruling is announced to put on notice these elements ahead of the forthcoming Senate elections, he said while speaking on an issue of public importance in the Senate today.
Farhatullah Babar said that the continuing shrinking of civilian and parliamentary space and its taking over by invisible forces and civil-military bureaucratic complex was dangerous and must be curbed. Referring to the remarks of Senator Mohsin Leghari that sugar barons controlled the political narrative Senator Babar said that one section stood at the apex of power pyramid beyond every other group which was also not accountable. This is a matter of serious concern that needs to be addressed.
I do not expect that the Chair’s ruling will stop the slide overnight but the expression of consolidated opinion of the House might help in injecting some sanity all around, he said.
Chairman Raza Rabbani said that he had almost finalized his ruling on the issue and would announce it soon. Raza Rabbani also invited the Senator to his chambers tomorrow Friday for discussion on the issue.
Later talking to the media Senator Farhatullah Babar said during discussion on trichotomy of powers recently he had pointed out that the central issue was the systematic and deliberate shifting of locus of power from Islamabad to Rawalpindi and worse still the new locus was not accountable.
He said this phenomenon was summed up by former army chief General Jehangir Karamt while commenting on the legal frame work order (LFO) of General Pervez Musharraf. General JK publicly admitted that the LFO represented the long standing desire of the military to re-write the civil-military equation on the terms of the military. So neither it is something new nor there is any doubt about what he has been saying.
The issue is that lately it has acquired speed and momentum that bode ill for the federation.
Today the state is like a vehicle where the person on the steering has no control over vital levers like the accelerator, brake and clutch. Sooner or later such a vehicle is fated to meet a serious accident, he warned.
