ISLAMABAD, MAR 12 – Members of the opposition on Friday blasted the result of the Senate chairman election which saw the ruling PTI-backed Sadiq Sanjrani defeat PPP’s Yousuf Raza Gilani — the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s joint candidate — and vowed to challenge the result in the courts.

PPP leaders Raja Pervez Ashraf and Qamar Zaman Kaira along with senior PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal addressed a press conference in Islamabad as they criticised the Senate chairman election during which seven votes cast in favour of Gilani were rejected.

Ashraf alleged that the “unconstitutional and unlawful” manner in which Gilani’s majority was defeated and the decision was given against him was “worthy of condemnation”. He alleged that those who had talked about the “sanctity and importance” of the vote had instead planted cameras to affect the polling process — a reference to the “spy cameras” allegedly found near the polling booth in the Senate earlier in the day.

“I think that when we go to the courts and they analyse the ballot papers […] Yousuf Raza Gilani will be successful,” he added.

Iqbal, meanwhile, also said the opposition would take the matter to the courts “and we expect from the court that it will correct this attack on the Consitution, the law and the vote”.

Both leaders sharply criticised the process through which Gilani’s seven votes were rejected and Ashraf claimed that the PDM had actually won, while the “government candidate has badly failed”. He questioned why Sanjrani had occupied the seat despite being in the minority.

“I understand that if he was a politician, a giver of democracy to the country and a lover of democracy then he would’ve himself rejected that I don’t have more votes [and] I don’t have the majority so I am not qualified to be sitting on this chair,” he said.

He added that the use of such tactics by the government was a sign that “its days are numbered”. “A great joke has been had with democracy. We and the PDM reject this election,” said Ashraf.

Iqbal said the seven rejected votes stood valid according to a decision of the Supreme Court (SC) he quoted.

“The question of the validity or otherwise of the ballot papers can only be determined by ascertaining the intention of the voters and in that respect, the manner of affixing the stamp is material.

“If the mark or stamp is affixed upon the name of the candidate instead of their symbol, there cannot be any hesitation to maintain that the voter had in fact shown his consent to cast vote in [the candidate’s] favour.”

He maintained that other decisions of the SC also held that the intent of the voter needed to be considered, saying there were “dozens of decisions of the SC, the high court and ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan) that [such a] vote is valid”.

“It is as clear as the rising of the sun that this rigging was done by forcefully invalidating seven votes to turn the defeat of the government into victory,” the PML-N leader alleged.

“PDM candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani won with 49 votes and government candidate Sadiq Sanjrani lost with 48 votes but the victory of the losing candidate was declared by forcibly rejecting seven votes of Yousuf Raza Gilani.”

PPP leader and Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani, meanwhile, citing a banner stating the instructions for casting vote in the Senate hall, said that according to it the stamp was to be placed inside the box containing the favoured candidate’s name.

He also claimed that the senate secretary had told him and PPP leaders Farooq Naek and Sherry Rehman “that the name can also be stamped”.

‘Political burial’

The ranks of the government, meanwhile, were abuzz with celebration in the wake of Sanjrani’s victory.

Speaking to media just after Sanjrani was declared the winner, Minister for Information Shibli Faraz said his victory showed that the time had come for the PDM’s “political burial”.

“I want to congratulate the people of Pakistan because the dark forces have been defeated,” he said.

Senator Faisal Javed added that not only the people of Pakistan, but “their own people rejected them”. He said Sanjran’s win was a win for all of Balochistan.

ANKARA, MAR 12 – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday unveiled a long-promised economic reform package that he hopes will boost the confidence of skittish foreign investors and temper inflation while boosting trade.

It included tax breaks for small business owners and a pledge to improve efficiency that could help export-driven growth.

“The package aims to grow the Turkish economy on the basis of investment, production, jobs, and exports,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the Economic Reforms Introductory Meeting at the Halic Congress Center in Istanbul.

Turkey will raise its potential growth through boosting production efficiency thanks to this reform package, Erdoğan noted.

“We aim for a domestic and national economy which break export records with fewer imported input and more value-added production,” the president said.

He identified the fight against persistent inflation as “one of the main objectives” with the goal of quickly “bringing it down to single digits“.

Turkey weathered the 2009 global economic crisis and post-2013 crises in both politics and the economy to keep its 2023 targets within reach, Erdoğan stressed.

“We will achieve our goals by working day and night to make Turkey one of the world’s top 10 economies,” he said.

Saying that macroeconomic and structural policies form the backbone of Turkey’s new economic reforms, Erdoğan said Turkey is focusing on public finance, inflation, the financial sector, current account deficit, and employment as part of macroeconomic stability.

Encouraging investments, easing domestic trade, competition policies, market surveillance and control are in the reform package as part of structural policies, he noted.

STRONGER PUBLIC FINANCE

Turkey’s first target is setting stronger public finance structure to guard against risks, with fiscal discipline the top priority, the president underlined.

The share of foreign exchange in the country’s total debt stock will be cut to reduce its sensitivity to external shocks, Erdoğan said.

He highlighted that savings in public administration will be expanded such as limiting vehicle rentals and hospitality costs, adding:

“In addition to the central government, we aim to create a thrifty perspective in local administrations as well.”

Noting that the government knows of the difficulties small business owners have been struggling with during the pandemic, Erdoğan said the reform package also includes a tax exemption for low-income tradesmen.

“We will be exempting approximately 850,000 tradespeople who are subject to small business taxation rules, such as hairdressers, plumbers, haberdasheries, carpenters, lathe makers, tea shop operators, tailors, and repairmen, from income tax, and we will remove their tax filing obligations,” he said.

EASING TAXES, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

A digital tax office will be established which will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week to enable the public to carry out their transactions in the digital environment without personally visiting a tax office.

“We have also included the tax problems faced by international investors within the reforms,” he noted, adding that the country is revising double taxation avoidance agreements to prevent possible problems that may arise.

As the country has praised public-private partnership projects, exemplified by city hospitals, Erdoğan said a public-private sectors cooperation law will be enacted.

“This will enable us to ensure that investors deal with a single law, to strengthen the legal infrastructure of projects, to introduce priorities among sectors and projects, and to make processes more foreseeable,” he said.

Stressing that one of the priority agenda items will be the fight against inflation, Erdoğan said Turkey aims to bring inflation down to single digits.

An early warning system will be established that will ensure the flow of data in order for the Food Committee to form policy recommendations and ensure that the market operates effectively.

In order to increase foreseeability in agricultural production and prevent price fluctuations, contractual agricultural mechanisms are being developed, he stressed.

Turkey is preparing uniform legislation that will accelerate the development of the participation financing sector, he said, adding: “A Central Advisory Board for the sector will be set up while the participation financing sector will be gathered under a single roof.”

A participation financing arbitration mechanism at international standards will be established, he underlined.

ISLAMABAD, MAR 12 (DNA) – The federal information minister Senator Shibli Faraz said Friday, as he talked to the media following the election of government-backed Sadiq Sanjrani as Senate chairman, that empowering Prime Minister Imran Khan is crucial to ensure the supremacy of law and order.

Shibli Faraz asserted the politics of joint opposition alliance Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is now dead and buried and since the country cannot afford to regress now, it is necessary that we support the prime minister.

The federal minister said their nominated Senate chairman candidate Sanjrani has won today even when the opposition perpetrated the propaganda of spy cameras installed in the upper house.

What they did in the National Assembly, happened to them in Senate, he said. Those who want progress for the country have won, Faraz said, adding that the PM with the sincerest intentions for the prosperity for Pakistan was blessed with divine support.

The presiding officer in charge of Senate chairman polls Friday has convened Sadiq Sanjrani to take oath as Senate chairman for the second time but house members from the opposition alliance cause commotion over wasted votes.

As the oath-taking took place, the house experienced a row raised by Pakistan Peoples Party’s Farooq H Naik who argued against discarding seven votes which could have meant a win for joint opposition alliance’s candidate Yousuf Raza Gilani. = DNA

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LAHORE, MAR 12 (DNA) – An accountability court in Lahore has extended the judicial remand of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Khawaja Asif in assets beyond income case.

Judge Jawadul Hassan conducted the hearing of assets beyond income case against PML-N central leader Khawaja Asif today. The lawmaker did not appear in the hearing.

During the hearing, the jail officials presented the medical report of the accused lawmaker which stated that Asif was admitted to Jinnah Hospital for hernia operation. The judge remarked that platelets of the patient dropped within a minute here.

 He said that each accused would give an excuse for not appearing in the courtroom. Khawaja Asif’s counsel told the court that his client will be discharged from the hospital after undergoing operation within 10-15 days.

 The court asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor whether the judicial remand could be extended in the absence of the accused. The prosecutor said that it could be extended in an untoward situation.

Later, the court extended the judicial remand of Asif for 14 days and adjourned the hearing till March 26. Moreover, the court summoned a detailed report on the reference from the investigation officer (IO) of the anti-corruption watchdog.

The anti-graft watchdog accused that a bank peon in Lahore had submitted over Rs28 million to the bank account of Khawaja Asif following the orders of senior officers. It stated that the nephew of Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Sultan, had submitted Rs20 million to his bank account after being told by his paternal uncle.

A senior political worker Rana Abdul Waheed had submitted Rs30 million to Asif’s account and told the NAB that the money was given to him by Asif. Another political activist Sarmad Ijaz had withdrawn Rs5 million from Asif’s bank account and handed him over the money.

 The documents stated that Asif had failed to respond to the NAB’s query regarding the money from where it was earned. = DNA

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ISLAMABAD, MAR 12: Two days International Seminar on “Seismicity, Seismotectonic, Seismic Hazards Including Geological & Geophysical Aspects” was jointly organized by COMSTECH and Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad under COMSTECH Consortium of Excellence.

H.E. Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary, Coordinator General, COMSTECH welcomed the chief guest, guest of honor and all the distinguished speakers and participants to the event. During his welcome address, he shared the ongoing and upcoming capacity building activities and programmes of COMSTECH.

Prof. Muhammad Ali Shah, Vice Chancellor, Quaid-i-Azam University was invited as the Chief Guest, and Prof. Muhammad Shahid Baig, Chairman, Pakistan Science Foundation as the Guest of Honor. The event was moderated by Prof. Dr. MonaLisa from Quaid-i-Azam, University.

The seminar was aimed to discuss the issues and challenges faced pre and post natural disasters such as earthquakes occurring in different OIC Member Countries.

Pakistan and many other OIC Countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, and Turkey are situated on the margins of active plates who have the history of major destructive earthquakes of magnitude 8 and above.

In 2005, one of the most destructive earthquakes in Pakistan (death loss of about 80,000 persons) was a wakeup call for educationists, researchers, civil and structural engineers, government officials and policy makers alike.

Recently an Earthquake Seismology Lab has been established in Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad to support research activities and programmes at under graduate and graduate level. Such initiatives will help researchers within OIC Countries to collaborate with each other to resolve similar challenges.

Resource Persons from China, Italy, Iran, Pakistan and USA contributed to the seminar. Over 400 participants from Afghanistan, Belgium, Canada, Central Asia, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, and Yemen participated in the seminar, which indicates the interest of participants to listen to the findings of the most renowned speakers of the seminar.

Such events help in building the most needed capacity in such areas. There is a dire need to strengthen a linkage of field experts within OIC countries. Few experts have suggested to formulate a working group of experts on Earthquake Disasters at OIC Level. The aim of the working group would be to work collectively to mitigate such disaster.