After Senate, NA also approves 26th Constitutional Amendment

Islamabad: After the Senate approved the 26th constitutional amendment, the government secured a two-thirds majority in both houses.

During the passage of the first two clauses during the session of the National Assembly, 12 opposition members voted against it. Still, later the opposition members boycotted and walked out of the House.

The government needed 224 votes to approve the 26th constitutional amendment in the House, but during the clause-by-clause approval of the amendment, 225 members voted in favor of the amendment.

Six dissident members also voted in favor of the constitutional amendment, out of which five belong to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and one to Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).

Later, Speaker National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq adjourned the meeting till 5:00pm on Tuesday.

For the 26th constitutional amendment, voting was conducted in the National Assembly for clause-by-clause approval, during which 225 members approved all 27 clauses.

After the approval, the Law Minister presented the constitutional amendment before the House for formal approval, after which voting was done by division. Nawaz Sharif was the first to vote in the voting process by division.

Earlier, after the approval of the Senate, Federal Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar submitted a motion to present the constitutional amendment to the National Assembly for clause-by-clause approval.

During the session of the National Assembly, the members stood and voted on the motion to present the constitutional amendment. 225 members voted in favor of the amendment while 12 members of the assembly opposed the amendment.

Later, the opposition members walked out of the House, but the opposition members remained in the lobby.

It is pertinent to note that the National Assembly session started under the chairmanship of Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, after which Naveed Qamar of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) presented a motion to suspend the normal proceedings of the House, which was approved.

After the motion was passed, the regular proceedings were suspended on October 20 and 21, after which the proceedings of the House resumed on a new day.

Notably, the government coalition needed 224 votes for the constitutional amendment in the National Assembly, but it had 211 members.

On government benches, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has 111 seats, PPP has 69 seats, Mutahidda Qoumi Mopvement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has 22 seats, PML-Q 5, Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) has four seats on government benches, while Pakistan Muslim League-Zia (PML-Z), Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) and Balochistan National Party (BNP) have one each.

A reference has been filed against three members of the ruling coalition, thus the number is 211 and with the support of 8 members of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami (JUI), the number will be 219 and the government needs five more members to pass the constitutional amendment.

During the ongoing session in the National Assembly, five independent members including Chaudhry Ilyas, Usman Ali, Mubarak Zeb, Shah Mehmood Qureshi's nephew Zahoor Qureshi, Aurangzeb Khachi arrived at the House. All five members were successful in the elections with the support of PTI.

Earlier, the country's upper house (Senate) had approved the 26th constitutional amendment by a two-thirds majority.

In the Senate, 65 votes were in favor of the constitutional amendments and 4 were against, 58 for the government, 5 for the JUI and 2 for the BNP. During the clause-by-clause passage of the amendment, members of the PTI, Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), and MDB walked out of the House.