Raza Rabbani elected member of Inter Parliamentary Union executive committee – Newspaper

ISLAMABAD: In a breakthrough in Belgrade, Senator Raza Rabbani emerged victorious on Sunday after India withdrew Shashi Tharoor's candidacy for a position on the prestigious executive committee of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU).

The IPU holds its 141st general assembly in the Serbian capital. It opened with a meeting of the IPU Asia and Pacific Group to decide on their joint candidate for a position on the executive committee.

Of the 34 members of the executive committee, Asia has three seats and two of them are already in the hands of China and Thailand. Elections for third place will be held on Sunday. The term of the member of the executive committee is three years.

According to the National Assembly Secretariat (NAS), Pakistan presented former Senate President Mian Raza Rabbani for the coveted position and his parliamentary delegation from Pakistan headed by UN President Asad Qaiser was vigorously pursuing his candidacy. It should be noted that Mr. Qaiser is president of the Asia Pacific Group for the current year.

When the meeting opened, the Indian delegation headed by Lok Sabha President Om Birla, in a surprise move, sent the candidacy of the prominent writer and member of Lok Sabha Congress, Shashi Tharoor.

India withdraws Shashi Tharoor's candidacy for the position

However, by perceiving a better position of Mr. Rabbani, the Indian delegation tried to gain more time for scrutiny and demanded a postponement of the vote. They also tried to refer the matter to the main general assembly.

However, this was thwarted by the Pakistani delegation, which sought the decision of the group president on the issue and urged him to follow the tradition of the Asia-Pacific fraternity to decide matters internally and not by the general assembly of the IPU.

Pakistan's appeal was seconded by China, Canada and the Philippines, a senior official from the NA Secretariat who attended the event told Dawn by phone.

The Canadian delegate drew the attention of the chamber to the previous case when a similar situation was resolved by voting within the group.

The Indian delegation tried to delay the elections until the last day of the general assembly of the IPU, which will end on October 17, but could not obtain the support of the countries that attended the session.

Consequently, finding no buyers from India's point of view and feeling an imminent defeat in the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy. Thus, Rabbani Race of Pakistan won the seat.

To add to the jubilation of Pakistan, the Asia Pacific Group unanimously elected Senator Sherry Rehman for the prestigious Bureau of the Standing Committee on Trade, Finance and Sustainable Development of the IPU. Senator Javaid Abbasi was also elected a member of the IPU Drafting Committee.

With these elections, the parliament of Pakistan has the prestigious presence of its seven members in different IPU committees.

The victory is said to be the result of Qaiser's diplomacy under whose speech, a record number of Pakistani parliamentarians have ventured into key international positions. Mr. Qaiser also played a decisive role in the election of Shandanda Gulzar as president of the Commonwealth parliamentarians. That election was held in Uganda last month.

Speaking to Dawn, Senator Rabbani called his success a victory for the entire country. "I think it is a great achievement of Pakistan in any international forum."

Posted on Dawn, October 14, 2019