abrar SaeedISLAMABAD - At the culmination of its mandated term of five years on March 16 the Pakistan People’s Party led coalition government’s performance has a yawning difference in running the governmental affairs and legislative business in the parliament.The ruling coalition was almost a complete failure on account of governance as through massive corruption, favouritism and the general public apathy; it messed up the economy, ruined industry, aggravated the energy crisis and fared too bad on provision of security to the life and property of the citizen. But the same team of PPP and its allies performed excellent in the parliament and broke all records of legislations by the previous parliaments.Political analysts giving their reflection on the working of the national assembly over the past five years said that the parliament had done marvellous job but the corruption littered governance of the ruling elite had eclipsed it and all the achievements of the parliament, some of them unprecedented and extraordinary, are lost in the failure of the ‘government of mega scandals’.The completion of the mandated term by national assembly, where the PPP had to largely rely on its coalition partners and even had to play in their hands just to keep the government intact, is in itself is a great achievement of the incumbent political government.Keeping in view the ground realities and the dependence of the leading ruling party on its smaller partners and stopgap support groups in the national assembly, the performance of parliament could rightly be dubbed as marvellous which has no parallel in the country’s history.The 18th Constitutional Amendment not only took the constitution back to its original (1973) version but also brought refinement in it. This amendment granted provincial autonomy to the provinces, abolished the Concurrent List and devolved about two dozen ministries and departments to the provinces, hence fulfilling the long-standing demand of the smaller provinces.Under the 19th and 20th amendments, special statutory measures were taken to grant maximum independence and power to superior judiciary as well as the Election Commission of Pakistan, thereby laying the foundation for holding of free, fair and impartial elections in future.The performance of Standing and Parliamentary Committees of the assembly also remained outstanding over these years and the lawmakers, both in their private as well as in capacity of treasury and opposition members, did justice to their job.As for government’s achievements, the completion of the mandated term by the national assembly in itself is a great feat of the PPP led coalition which braved the thick and thin over the past five years and sailed the boat of democracy out of turbulent waters where their opponents repeatedly came up with deadlines on fall of the fragile political dispensation every now and then.Another major achievement of the PPP led government was that for the first time in the country’s history the defence budget was presented and partially examined in the parliament. Then, right from tendering of apology to the people of Balochistan by President Zardari, the presentation of Aghaz-i-Haqooq-i-Balochistan, granting of special grant to Balochistan in the 7th NFC Award and other measures taken by the PPP-led government aimed at alleviating the sufferings of the Baloch. But unfortunately these steps came too late and they also failed to make considerable impact due to alleged large-scale corruption by the provincial government which prevented reaching the benefits to the masses.