P A K I S T A N N A T I O N A L A S S E M B L Y

R U L E S O F P R O C E D U R E

A N D

S T U D Y G U I D E

Contents

1. Business of the House 2. Topic Area A: Electoral Rigging 3. Topic Area B: Restoration of Student Politics 4. Code of Conduct 5. PNA Individual Portfolio

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Introduction

The present national crisis and its elements have made us to play by their rules, well, the rules just changed. It’s time to take up the bag of recommendation drafts and to hit the Assembly floor. The Parliament that we are going to make in the mix with all of these politicians you will be allotted wouldn’t be just for representation, but would be for all that competition that resides in you. Pakistan National Assembly is more than just a session anywhere; it’s a mini youth Parliament. A lot is expected from this house of orators, and it’s just more than being leftist and rightist in political point of views. It’s more than being or Imran Khan at the scene; it’s about using your words as the only way out, how you convince is how you get! Be ready, because there is a lot of legislation to do this Sadiq MUN in the PNA.

Business of the House

This year on the Assembly floor, according to the tradition, two most-pressing National issues have been chosen out for competition. Nothing more than good and competitive debating while being in norms is required. As being a Parliament, it comes within our blood to legislate via dialogue for solving matters as serious as these. This is the beauty of democracy that even there is turmoil, disparity and agitation within the society, this institution (the Parliament) that represents the public in the shape of “People-Power” has dialogue as the only solution.

The session would consist of Parliamentary work over the following topics:

. Electoral reforms against rigging. . Restoration of Student Politics in Pakistan

The delegates are expected to research further when preparing for their PNA session.

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Topic Area A: Electoral reforms against rigging

Despite the obvious fact that 'elections' were the only mechanism to institutionalize the vision of Pakistan's founding fathers; Pakistan faced quite a lot of trouble for not being able to hold general elections at regular intervals. Even when elections were conducted- they lacked fairness and transparency thus putting a question mark on the legitimacy of the people who were returned to the Parliament. A chart is provided below with the details of elections held in the history of Pakistan. Pakistan saw the biggest turn out of its electioneering history for the first time in 2013 General Elections. However, the results of the May 2013 Elections were not welcomed by many, especially by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and its supporters. PPPP, PML Q and Jama’at-e-Islami along with few other parties also had reservations. The PTI (that returned to the parliament as the third largest political party in terms of seats and the second largest political party in terms of votes) for the first year after the elections kept demanding for recounting of votes particularly in four constituencies and also demanded for concrete electoral reforms. However, when the demands were not paid any heed the PTI and its supporters took the protest to roads and Pakistan saw the longest ever sit-in protests of its political history that lasted for more than four months. This protest was the first of its kind that showed the distrust of people of Pakistan on its electoral system and ECP - its transparency, impartiality and independence. The Speaker of National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq established a special parliamentary committee on Electoral Reforms in June 2014 when the protestor had taken the road. The committee has total of 33 members (22 MNA's and 11 Senators) in which all the Parliamentary political parties have been given representation and is chaired by Mr. Ishaq Dar. The mandate of the Committee was to evaluate the shortcomings of the previous elections and to suggest recommendations for holding free, fair and transparent elections in the future. The committee was supposed to submit its report after three months but after holding around 22 meetings (including those of its subcommittees) the committee has been unable to present the report in the Parliament, rather the committee has not held any meeting since last November. The secretary to the Committee on Electoral Reforms during an interview informed the Youth Parliament Standing Committee on Law, Justice & Human Rights that the committee has invited suggestions for the electoral reforms from all walks of the society and all the political parties have contributed into making the report which is expected to come out in next few months. Moreover, when asked about the implementation of those reforms, he said that it is going to be a lengthy process as the report is around few hundred pages and the parliament will decide upon which recommendations shall be incorporated in law and that may take a while. However, he was confident that before the next elections Pakistan will see a positive development with regard to the electoral reforms.

Reference: http://www.youthparliament.pk/yp2014/downloads/CR/ElectoralReformsinPakistan.pdf

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History of Electoral Reforms:

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Ways in which elections are rigged

Electoral Manipulation

Most electoral fraud takes place during or immediately after election campaigns, by interfering with the voting process or the counting of votes. However, it can also occur far in advance, by altering the composition of the electorate. In many cases this is not illegal and thus technically not electoral fraud, although it is a violation of the principles of democracy.

Ballot papers confusion

Ballot papers may be used to discourage votes for a particular party or candidate, using design or other features which confuse voters into voting for a different candidate. Another method of confusing people into voting for a different candidate than they intended is to run candidates or create political parties with similar names or symbols as an existing candidate or party. The aim is that enough

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voters will be misled into voting for the false candidate or party to influence the results. Such tactics may be particularly effective when a large proportion of voters have limited literacy in the language used on the ballot paper. Again, such tactics are usually not illegal but often work against the principles of democracy.

Involvement of Establishment and Interim Government

2013 elections and previous elections in Pakistan have been widely accused of being rigged by the interim government and unfair practices by Election Commission. Code of Conduct needs to be shaped.

Role of Returning Officers

The returning officers have often been alleged by the political parties of being involved into electoral rigging. The biggest crisis came up after 2013 elections when the returning officers were accused of changing the whole results which differed by meager differences. There has to be something done to prevent this being from being continued.

Unverified Votes

Unverified votes have been reported of changing the entire results of elections. This is basically cause by use of substandard ink (not magnetic ink in particular) and use of sub-standard ballet paper on which votes cannot be verified when checked. All this caused serious problems and turmoil in the country.

Problems faced by voters

The lasting images of the 2013 general elections were those of endless queues in the scorching sun, teenage boys threatening voters outside polling stations and videos of human rigging machines mechanically stamping ballot papers. The voters experienced huge life threats including blaring sounds of fires and inhumane activities. The overseas Pakistanis were not facilitated to vote, as they were not given any facility to vote while being in their respective country.

Recent Elections were held in 11th May 13 which attracted a big turnout than previous elections in Pakistan. It was reported that elections will bring an unexpected change in Pakistan's democratic step and a peaceful transition of power shall take place for the first ever time in Pakistan but yet again this dream was shattered into infinite fragments. This lead to Political leaders to be reported of derogatory remarks by renowned newspapers.

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Topic Area B: Restoration of Student Politics in Pakistan

Politics now a days is known to those who pay heed to it only, we misunderstand the term ’political’ and even use it as an abusive article. Why? Isn’t it the dimension through which we got our land, Pakistan? Isn’t it the way through which we got those 90,000 prisoners back from the international jails? If it is so than why ignore politics, the way toward dialogue, the road that has always led to amnesty within and without. It is what our great founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah did. He introduced us to the concept of ‘Parliament’, he founded this country as the secular and democratic state we all needed. But, currently on the scene politics isn’t the problem, but it has been shown to us as one. Let’s dive down into the deep pool of history. The history says that this country faced the darkest age of national crisis and it still is, and it is due to the ban on student politics and it being sabotaged for certain interests. In this debatable session of Pakistan National Assembly we will thoroughly go through the chronological attacks on the student empowerment of this land. It has been banned since the long reigning martial laws. When student politics got banned, political parties stopped getting fresh political blood. The same old batch of our political uncles kept running the scenario, due to which instead of innovative legislation and formation in democracy we face a crisis of political learning. Second of all when student politics is nowhere the public now doesn’t believe in the country’s system due to which people have become violent toward our national politics. Very less romantic people and thinkers are left who love the motherland as it should be. The youth has been deprived of all its rights and now there is no recognition for the education of many Pakistani students. Our syllabuses have been designed in a way that we are discouraged from student-dialogue and pupils only know what their rights are and have forgotten what their duties must be. Due to such a big vacuum of time, about 30 years and counting our youth doesn’t know the reproduction of Pakistani politics and its significance. We need new thinkers, ideology supporters and logic makers. Let’s legislate for what is ‘OUR’ right! We don’t have to be students who have been grouped as student politicians with violence; we have to be student politicians with words and democracy with diplomacy as our only skill. If you have what it takes to take our rights back through dialogue than you are ready to hear the words ‘People’s Champion’.

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Prominent Student Unions in Pakistan

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A review of the history also reinforces just how dynamic and volatile student politics were in Pakistan. Its democratic nature and deep ideological divides were also intriguing counterpoints to the repressive and authoritarian nature of the Pakistani state and governments. As mentioned previously, a large reason for this dynamism can be attributed to the fact that there were very weak institutions for representation in the country. For example, during the Ayub regime, when student politics first made a mark on national affairs, there were indirect elections. Student unions provided the youth with a chance to have a voice and it was one they exercised to devastating effect – both on the Left and the Right. However, the volatility – and later violence – was also because of the influence of the state and political parties. The former attempted to subdue student politics at every turn, while the latter repeatedly used them as proxies, comprising their independence and integrity.

From Ayub to Bhutto

By 1968, a coalition of trade and labour unions, in conjunction with the increasingly powerful student unions, were at the forefront of the movement which forced Ayub to step down. The movement today is increasingly recounted as a victory for the Left in what is now Pakistan, although the subsequent results of student politics would point to a more complex reality. The 1970 general elections saw the absolute domination of the left-leaning Awami League in East Pakistan and a comprehensive win for the left-leaning PPP in West Pakistan, while the Jama'at-i-Islami was routed. Yet this wave of leftist uprising was not mirrored in campus elections. The NSF was deeply divided along ideological fault lines, and “its fracturing … mimicked the panoply of the Western Left … allowing Islamists to dominate student union elections throughout the mid-1970s,” with wins for the Jami'at at the University of in 1969 and, then, during the next four 14 years (1970–1974), both at the and at Punjab University Lahore. The effect of these wins was profound in terms of the political development of the Jama'at-i-Islami, as the mother party now looked to its student wing for inspiration: “Jami'at's victories breathed new life and hope into the dejected Jama'at-i-Islami, whose earlier anguish over the student Organization’s politicization now gave away to admiration and envy.” It would be remiss to continue a discussion on student politics of this era and not mention the role of students in the Bangladesh movement, particularly those belonging to Dhaka University, which was a hotbed of the independence movement in East Pakistan. The brutality with which pro-Pakistan militias and the Pakistani army executed professors and student leaders at Dhaka University reflected the scale of their influence. Following partition in 1971and the start of Pakistan's first civilian, democratically elected government, it would have been expected to see the status of student politics to continue to rise. After all, the new Premier had been very popular among the students, and had used their energy to launch the movement that led to his arrival in power. But perhaps chastened by the power of student unions both in the separation of East Pakistan as well as the fall of the military dictatorship that preceded it, Bhutto began to distance himself from his erstwhile supporters – the very forces he had been using for his political rise. The leftist student unions were aghast at Bhutto's political maneuvers, and Sadiq Model United Nations 2015 Sadiq Public School, Ahmedpur Road, Bahawalpur, Pakistan. [email protected]; www.facebook.com/sadiqmun +92-062-2877692-4

“had been angered by the PPP government’s apparent divergence from its oft- stated socialist goals. Bhutto [had] lost their respect and the [students appeared] to be searching for a movement and a leader that [did] not give the appearance of crass opportunism.” In response to the growing disillusionment, Bhutto began to cull several ideologues from within the NSF itself, who had been calling him out on his alleged betrayals. Over at the right, the Jama’at began to use the Jami’at for its own purposes as well. In the aftermath of its electoral rout, the Jama’at was “unable to function as a mass-based party against the popular PPP, [so it] increasingly pushed Jami'at into the political limelight. Jami'at thus became the mainstay of anti-PPP agitation campaigns … and found national recognition as a de facto political party and a new measure of autonomy from Jama'at-i-Islami.” However, this new found power was a double-edged sword, as the Jami'at was now reduced to an instrument of political activity for the Jama’at-e-Islami itself.

All ordinances, amendments and legislation prohibiting the operation of student unions and limiting the participation of students and youth in politics need to be amended and/or repealed. Moreover, the Political Party Act should also be implemented so that there is greater democracy within parties, and therefore greater access for newer and younger faces to come through.

Further Reading: http://www.nihcr.edu.pk/Latest_English_Journal/7.%20Students%20as%20the%20Pre ss ure%20Group,%20MahboobHussain.pdf

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Questionnaire

This set of questions must be taken under proper considerations according to the parliamentary procedural given prior, it contains those questions that you would answer in the shape of a parliamentary speech on the floor so that working papers could be drafted and resolutions may be passed unanimously.

Electoral Reforms

1. What legislation should be made to prevent the interim government of being biased?

2. How should the Election Commission of Pakistan be restructured?

3. The previous electoral system is reliable, yes or no?

4. What punishments should be devised for culprits?

5. What technologies should be brought into our electoral process and how reliable would they be?

6. What role should the armed forces and media play?

7. If riggings is done at various constituencies, should the whole election be considered as rigged?

8. What should be the facilities for national and international Pakistani voters?

9. The Azadi march was justified?

10. How should be protests conducted?

11. Protests in 2013 caused a lot of problems and economic upset?

12. This system; democracy should be let to continue even after having an accused government such as this?

13. Absence of parliament damaged Pakistan’s system?

14. What criteria for making chairman Election Commission of Pakistan should be made and by who?

15. No Voter census till district level causes a big problem in verification of votes, how should it be done and maintained?

16. Is it acceptable to not let a person take part in elections for the rest of a lifetime once found guilty?

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Restoration of Student Politics in Pakistan

1. What should be the role of Parliament in the restoration of Student Politics in Pakistan?

2. Our schools, colleges and universities should be re-introduced to student politics and what should be the rights given back to students?

3. Was it wrong to ban student politics in Pakistan?

4. Should Governments play a role in organizing political programs for Pakistani students?

5. Should educational institutions design their system with the content of early student politics?

6. We do face a political crisis due to absence of student politics in Pakistan. Why if Yes or No?

7. How and who should design our syllabi in order to restore political orientation for students?

8. How can Politics be taught as a profession?

9. What is ‘Politics’?

10. National politics should be based on party politics?

11. The insertion of independent or non-party candidates in history till now weakened Pakistani politics and parliament?

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Code of Conduct

Each member of Assembly is required to abide by the typical Parliamentary way of speaking. Everyone should pay respect to the Democratic Culture, Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and ideology of the Country.

Rules for members

Every member is required to observe certain rules and conventions, as spelled out under the traditional parliamentary rules, while present in the Assembly and/or while speaking on the floor of the House. Conduct during House Sittings while the Assembly is sitting, a member should:

1. Not read any book, newspaper or letter, except in connection with the business of the Assembly.

2. Not pass between the Chair and any member who is speaking.

3. Not interrupt any member's speech by disorderly expression or noises or in any other disorderly manner.

4. Not obstruct the proceeding or make running commentaries during the speeches.

5. Not indulge in rowdy behavior, chant slogans, display banners/placards, throw and tear table documents/reports, etc.

6. Not approach the dais of the Speaker in a threatening manner.

7. Not act in any manner detrimental to the order and decorum of the House, or act to erode its sanctity or lower its dignity.

8. Not use a mobile telephone.

9. Not chew or eat or drink or smoke.

10. Not bring any stick unless permitted by the Speaker.

11. Keep to his/her usual seat while addressing the Assembly.

12. Maintain silence when not speaking in the Assembly.

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Conduct While Speaking

The subject matter of every speech should be relevant to the matter before the Assembly. While speaking, a member should not:

1. Reflect on any determination of the Assembly, except on a motion for rescinding it.

2. Use the President's name for purpose of influencing the debate. Utter treasonable, seditious or defamatory words or make use of offensive or un-Parliamentary expression.

3. Discuss any matter which is sub-judice.

4. Reflect upon the President in his personal capacity.

5. Discuss the conduct of any judge of the Supreme/High Court in the discharge of his duties.

6. Make a personal charge against a member or the holder of a public office, except when relevant in regard to the matter before the Assembly.

7. Use his right of speech for willfully and persistently obstructing the business of the Assembly.

8. Use offensive expressions about the conduct of proceeding in the joint sitting.

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Pakistan National Assembly

The Pakistan National Assembly featured at Sadiq MUN 2015 is up with a clean outlook, now featuring worthy Pakistani politicians, who have had the chance to be the people’s representatives, this time featuring Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as well, to the ones currently in power.

(This list represents a model group of Parliamentarians)

Portfolio: Individuals

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Shehla Raza Mehmood Khan Achakzai

Mian. M. Nawaz Sharif Farooq Sattar Anusha Rehman Khan

Abdul Maalik Baloch Dr. Arif Alvi Syed Abdul Rasheed Godel

Maulana Mehmood Khan Imran Khan Dr. Shireen Mazari Sheerani

Siraj ul Haq Saeed Ghani Shafqat Mehmood

Asfandyar Wali Khan Ghulam Ahmed Bilour Bhawan Das

Maulana Fazlur Rehman Amir Haider Khan Dr. Fehmida Mirza

Ch. Shujaat Hussain Ejaz ul Haq Mian M. Baligh ur Rehman

Shah Mehmood Qureshi Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed Khawaja Muhammad Asif

Faryal Talpur Khawaja Saad Rafiq Sardar Ayaz Sadiq

Ghulam Mustufa Khar Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Syed Khursheed Shah Ch. Nisar Khan Javed Hashmi Asad Umar

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