islamabad
\nPakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Thursday urged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers to join the electoral reforms committee, saying parliament could be strengthened if the opposition played an active role in the legislative process.
\nSpeaking on the floor of the National Assembly, Bilawal called on opposition parties to return to parliamentary committees and asked Leader of the Opposition in the NA Mahmood Khan Achakzai to use his authority to ensure their participation in the electoral reforms process.
\nHe said the government and the treasury benches have a responsibility to make parliament functional, but the opposition also needed to fulfil its role.
\n\u201cParliament is powerful, and if parliament is powerful, we are all powerful,\u201d Bilawal said, stressing that elected representatives have a collective responsibility to strengthen the institution.
\nBlaming the opposition\u2019s role, he warned that those who wanted parliament to remain weak and ineffective had achieved their objective.
\nBilawal said all political parties have a responsibility to represent their respective constituencies and should use parliamentary forums to raise public concerns rather than remain absent from committee proceedings.
\nHe urged the opposition leader to exercise his authority regarding the electoral reforms committee and asked opposition lawmakers to submit their nominations to the National Assembly speaker\u2019s office.
\nThe PPP chairman said the committee could provide a platform to address allegations of electoral rigging and work towards reforms before future elections.
\n\u201cIf you want concerns about rigging in future elections to be addressed, you must participate in the electoral reforms committee,\u201d he said, urging PTI lawmakers to join the process.
\nBilawal maintained that the committee would serve little purpose if opposition parties refused to participate. He said the government was willing to engage with the opposition and called on opposition lawmakers to come forward and contribute to the process.
\nHe also sought a briefing for parliament on developments concerning the country\u2019s security and economy, saying lawmakers should be informed about potential challenges in the coming days.
\nBilawal called for parliament to be taken into confidence over the implications of defence agreements signed by Pakistan and the possible risks facing the country.
\nHe stressed that lawmakers needed information about the evolving situation to enable them to understand the challenges and discuss the government\u2019s response.
\nLet us sit together: Achakzai
\nAddressing the lower house, Achakzai called for parliament to be made the source of power, urging the government to strengthen the institution. He said political parties would receive support if they worked towards making parliament stronger.
\nThe opposition leader also recalled his demand for the formation of a committee to examine alleged government corruption.
\nUrging political reconciliation, Achakzai said no new political players would emerge and that existing political forces needed to move beyond past disputes.
\n\u201cNeither are you so good, nor are we so bad. Let us sit together,\u201d he said, calling on political rivals to engage with one another.
\nPPP delegation meets opposition leaders
\nIn a separate development today, a high-level PPP delegation met NA Opposition Leader Achakzai and conveyed a message from the party\u2019s chairman Bilawal.
\nFormer federal minister Syed Naveed Qamar and former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf met Achakzai at the office of Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri.
\nPTI senators were also present during the meeting.
\nSpeaking to the media after the meeting, Ashraf said that the opposition leader welcomed Bilawal\u2019s message.
\nHe urged the Imran Khan-founded PTI to play its full role in parliament, saying the institution\u2019s dignity was also linked to free and fair elections.
\nHe called for parliamentary committees to be formed to introduce electoral reforms, noting that Bilawal had also advocated reforms through parliament.
\nThe former prime minister said the PPP had always worked to promote democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
islamabad Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Thursday urged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers to join the electoral reforms committee, saying parliament could be strengthened if the opposition played an active role in the legislative process. Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly, Bilawal called on opposition parties to return to parliamentary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105118,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105107\/revisions\/105118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}