ISLAMABAD, April 06: Prime Minister YOusuf Raza Gilani Tuesday said 18th Amendment was a dividend of politics of reconciliation that would strengthen institutions and create balance of power between the President and the Parliament. "Today all stakeholders are on one pitch. The President, the Prime Minister, Supreme Court and the Parliament are working in complete harmony and it is the biggest dividend of reconciliatory politics," he said soon after Senator Raza Rabbani presented the 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill in the National Assembly on Tuesday. He said when the Pakistani leadership signed the first constitution in 1956, they went to Mazar-e-Quaid bare-footed to pay homage to the Father of Nation as they thought they had fulfilled his dream. But all those politicians were disqualified by the 1958 martial law. The politicians rose again and made the 1973 consensus constitution. Again, the dictators made changes in it to perpetuate their power. "We have this painful history of suspending or changing the constitution by the dictators one after the other. But, the 1973 political leadership of that time made utmost effort to end deprivation of provinces," he said. Referring to his resignation from the Junejo government, he said, his resignation letter was written by Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. "I had resigned for restoration of democracy and today I am restoring the constitution by removing amendments of dictatorial regimes. It is a divine arrangement." He said Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif realized the mistakes of past and jointly signed the Charter of Democracy (CoD) for restoration of real democracy in the country. "And these amendments constitute number of those sections as well as fulfilment of the manifesto of political parties." He said it was not an ordinary task to bring all state organs in their constitutional ambit because if only President had refused, there could have not been balance of power. "When I met President Zardari, I said power is a musical chair. One should not go after a thing that is not permanent. So we need to strengthen institutions and not the persons," he said. The Prime Minister said during his tenure in the government neither there was any incident of political victimization nor there was any political prisoner. "What we have today, is a fruit of unity. No matter we are in government or in the opposition, let us pledge to stand united for supreme national interests," the Prime Minister said and once again congratulated the Chairman and the members of the Constitutional Reforms Committee
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