Federalism, parliamentary democracy eroding in Pakistan: Senator Rabbani

The concepts of federalism and parliamentary democracy in Pakistan are eroding with each passing day, said Senator Mian Raza Rabbani.

While expressing these views at a national conference on 'Making Pakistani federalism work: lessons from the government COVID-19 response', Rabbani said that that it is very unfortunate that efforts are being made to replace the current federal parliamentary democratic system with a quasi-presidential system, reported Dawn.

He also remarked that internal and external conditions are not conducive for such experimentation.

The Pakistani Senator stressed the need for strengthening the existing federal coordination mechanisms under the Council of Common Interests (CCI) instead of creating a new extra-constitutional forum such as the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

He further said that meetings of the CCI were not convened regularly despite it being the linchpin of the federal system, adding that all matters in the Federal Legislative List Part-II are being decided by the Cabinet, which is in violation of the Constitution, Dawn reported.

Meanwhile, Senator Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini slammed the deprivation in Balochistan, during the occasion. He said if an electricity line in Quetta is damaged it is not repaired for weeks but a damaged pipeline supplying gas out of Balochistan would get fixed within hours.

The event was organised by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) with support from Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) of the UK government, according to Dawn.

The conference was attended by lawmakers, legal and governance exerts from the federal capital and provinces.