Islamabad: Pakistan’s National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, on Tuesday passed three crucial bills to give extension to Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa for another three years.
Bajwa, a close confidant of Khan, was to retire on November 29 last year at the end of his three-year original term but Prime Minister Imran Khan gave the 59-year-old Army chief another extension of same length citing regional security situation through a notification on August 19.
However, the Supreme Court on November 28 suspended the government order, observing that there is no law to give extension to the Army chief’s tenure. But the apex court granted a six-month extension to Gen Bajwa after being assured by the government that Parliament will pass a legislation on the extension/reappointment of an army chief within six months.
The government after initial hesitation secured the support of the main Opposition parties and introduced three bills in the National Assembly to extend the retirement age from 60 to 64 years for the chiefs of army, navy and air force, and the chairman of the joint chief of staff committee.
The bills were approved by the Standing Committee on Defence on Monday, paving the way for approval by the Assembly.
Defence minister Pervaiz Khattak moved the three bills – The Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill 2020, the Pakistan Air Force (Amendment) Bill 2020 and the Pakistan Navy (Amendment) Bill 2020 – for voting and were passed easily as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan People Party supported them.
However, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal and Jamat-e-Islami boycotted the session as they were not happy with the new laws.
After the approval by the National Assembly, the bills will be presented in the Senate, the upper house, and are expected to be passed without any problem.
Once cleared by the two houses, the bills will be presented to the president for final approval to be promulgated.
It will help the government to re-appoint General Bajwa for another thee-year term. The powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 70 plus years of existence, has wielded considerable power in deciding matters concerning security and foreign policies.-PTI
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Imran without Bajwa is like a man in his trousers without his underwear.
Note the choice of words in this ridiculous reporting by PTI. Bajwa is much more than a “confidant’ of Imran Khan. It would be far closer to the truth to call Imran a “puppet” of Bajwa and the army. He was installed by massive electoral fraud, press intimidation, and through an army supported campaign of destabilizion of the previous govt. The article says that army has wielded “considerable” power in Pakistan. It would be far more accurate that while the civilians have “titular” power, the word of the army is “decisive”.
This kind of writing is reminiscent of western writing about Pakistan where correspondents use words that allow them to claim accuracy while toning down the criticism. Here PTI is blindly using similar words without an understanding of the importance of words and what biases they reflect.