Karachi: 1 tola gold rate in Pakistan today, 26 February 2024, is Rs. 221,400 per tola for 24-karat gold, and Rs. 189,815 for 10 grams, as per the latest updates from the Karachi, Multan, and Lahore bullion markets.
The gold price is rising globally at $2030 per ounce. It is considerable that gold prices in Pakistan can have huge ups and downs a second time due to the global gold market.
Note: It is pertinent to mention that the price of gold in Pakistan fluctuates several times per the international market, so the cost is never fixed. Local gold markets and Sarafa Markets of various cities provide the above rates.
QUETTA: The leadership of future coalition partners in Balochistan, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) could not finalise the names of their candidates for the top slots of the leader of the house, speaker, and deputy speaker, with three days remaining for the first session of the Balochistan Assembly, which has been summoned on Wednesday.
According to the formula reached between the central leadership of PPP and PML-N, after PPP agreed to support PML-N’s candidate Shehbaz Sharif for the prime ministership in the National Assembly, both parties decided to form a coalition government in Balochistan.
The chief minister will be a nominee from PPP, the office of the speaker will be from PML-N, and the deputy speaker will come from PPP. The slot of the new governor will go to PML-N.
Sources said that the PPP central leadership is considering three to four names for the chief minister position, including former chief minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, former caretaker interior minister Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti, former Balochistan finance minister Mir Zahoor Ahmed Buledi, and veteran party leader Mir Sadiq Umrani, who joined in 1972 and has remained with PPP until now.
PPP insiders said the leadership is facing opposition to the nominations of Mr Zehri and Mr Bugti as the new leader of the house. They said the chief minister candidate should be decided through consensus between both parties.
Despite several meetings between MPAs and MNAs elected on February 8, and discussions with the PPP high command, the name for chief minister could not be finalised. The majority of legislators have advocated for a “jiyala” to lead the next coalition government in Balochistan, as PPP has emerged as the single majority party with 17 MPAs in the house of 65 members.
“The name for the leader of the house was discussed at the Sunday meeting of the PPP, but no one was nominated as the party’s candidate for the slot of chief minister,” they said.
The same situation is evident in the PML-N as the party’s provincial leaders held a meeting with Shehbaz Sharif and discussed the future coalition government in the province.
Sources said some PML-N MPAs have expressed reservations over giving the slot of chief minister to PPP without consulting the provincial leadership.
According to party insiders, the provincial parliamentary party has suggested the name of Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani for the position of Balochistan Assembly speaker. She also served as the speaker from 2013 to 2018.
The provincial leadership has strongly opposed giving the speakership to any party other than PML-N.
Balochistan Awami Party leaders have demanded that the slot of speaker and proposed the name of Sadiq Sanjrani, the sitting Senate chairman, who will retire on March 8, after completing his six-year tenure as a senator.
According to reports, PML-N central leadership has not finalised the name of the party’s candidate for speaker.
However, the PML-N provincial leadership said that they will accept the decision of the party’s central leadership about the speakership.
Party sources indicate that the PML-N is yet to finalise the name for the governor.
Since it has been decided that the post will go to PML-N, various names were under consideration.
PML-N Balochistan president, Sheikh Jaffar Khan Mandokhail, is leading the race for appointment as the next governor of Balochistan.
People were determined to vote in the 2024 elections. However, despite the increase in absolute terms, voter turnout dipped in terms of percentage. Harsh winter in parts of the country, fears of violence and terrorism in KP and Balochistan, as well as uncertainty about the conduct of elections, may have also adversely affected the turnout, states an analysis by the Free & Fair Election Network (Fafen).
Voter turnout has decreased since the 2013 elections, though it is higher than what it was in the 1980s and the 1990s. (The 1990s saw the musical chair of the Bhutto and Sharif family, though the bitter rivalry then could not have foreseen the coalition government today.)
The percentage of youths as voters has increased, and so has awareness through social media and the internet. It may account for a higher absolute voter turnout increase in the recent elections.
Research suggests that a poor economy may depress voter participation in some countries, hence under-penalising incumbents for bad economic performance. Other streams of research have contrary views that argue that a worsening economy has a disruptive effect that prods worried citizens to voice concerns and seek remedies. Among economic indicators, empirical data suggests that high unemployment rates stimulate more people to vote in countries like the US.
Nor are the decisions made in a vacuum. While the country teetered on the verge of default, Pakistan’s rival received international accolades based on economic might. One stream of research suggests that voters compare their nation’s economy with the economies of other countries.
A paper that compared 29 democracies since the 1980s found that a poor relative economy led to lower turnout, while a good relative economy appeared to have no effect, indicating that good performance can be overlooked but a bad performance cannot.
Of course, in Pakistan, the turnout on election day, as well as the election results, are strongly influenced by the powers-that-be. The sentiments of the people, be it the assassination of popular leaders or their incarceration, sway the people more than economic miseries.
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, February 26th, 2024
• Maryam to contest against PTI-backed Rana Aftab • SIC vows ‘surprise’ in Punjab • Murad to take on MQM-P’s Khurshidi • PTI, JI boycott Sindh CM poll
KARACHI / LAHORE: The two key allies in the expected ruling coalition in the Centre, the PPP and PML-N, are set to grab the coveted position of the chief minister in two major provinces on Monday, though the PTI-backed candidates promised a ‘surprise’ in the 371-member Punjab Assembly.
In Punjab, PML-N Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz Sharif is the party’s candidate for the chief minister slot against Rana Aftab Ahmed of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) whereas in Sindh PPP’s Murad Ali Shah will face off Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) candidate Ali Khurshidi amid a boycott by the PTI and the JI.
Initially, the SIC had nominated Mian Aslam Iqbal, MPA-elect from Lahore, for the slot but it replaced him with Rana Aftab from Faisalabad, a former PPP jiyala, as Mr Iqbal had not come to the house to take oath as MPA, fearing his arrest by the Punjab police.
Talking to the media after filing his nomination for the coveted slot, Rana Aftab said that the SIC was in a position to “give a surprise in Monday’s election”. He, however, regretted that SIC MPAs were not being allowed to enter the Punjab Assembly premises. He added the house was still incomplete because notifications of its 27 reserved seats were not being issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Apparently, the victory of Maryam Nawaz Sharif is imminent in the polls, as the party’s nominee for the office of speaker secured 224 votes against SIC’s 98 in the election held on Saturday. Confident of her victory, Ms Sharif is engaged in consultations to pick her cabinet and formulate her development agenda, which would be made public after assuming control of the province. The bureaucracy, including the chief secretary and the inspector-general of police, have already begun giving her briefings on various affairs.
Interestingly, the Governor House has issued invitations only to PML-N elders for the swearing-in ceremony to be held shortly after the polling for the chief minister’s slot. Ms Sharif will be the 30th chief minister of Punjab and the first woman to rule the largest province of the country.
Iftikhar Hussain Mamdoot was the chief minister when Pakistan came into being in 1947, followed by Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Feroze Khan Noon and Sardar Abdul Hameed Dasti. Dr Abdul Jabbar Khan, Sardar Abdul Rashid, Nawab Muzaffar Ali Qazilbash, Sheikh Masood Sadiq, Khan Habibullah Khan, Malik Khuda Bakhsh Bucha, Malik Meraj Khalid and Ghulam Mustafa Khar also ruled Punjab.
Muhammad Hanif Ramey, Nawab Sadiq Hussain Qureshi, Nawaz Sharif, Ghulam Haider Wyne, Mian Manzoor Watto, Sheikh Manzoor Elahi, Sardar Arif Nakai, Mian Afzal Hayat, Shehbaz Sharif, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, Ejaz Nisar, Dost Mohammad Khosa, Najam Sethi, Hasan Askari Rizvi, Usman Buzdar, Hamza Shehbaz and Mohsin Naqvi also served as full time or caretaker chief ministers of the province.
Murad eyes victory
In the Sindh Assembly, the PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami would boycott the proceedings for the CM’s election, according to the announcement made by both parties on Sunday. Sindh Assembly Speaker Owais Qadir Shah announced the schedule as per which the polling for the CM would take place at 2pm on Monday (today).
The PPP nominated Murad Ali Shah for the position of chief minister.
Ghulam Qadir Chandio, Saleh Shah and Naeem Kharal submitted the nomination papers on behalf of Murad Ali Shah.
On the other hand, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has fielded Ali Khurshidi for the position of chief minister.
The 38-year-old MQM-P candidate has been elected to the Sindh Assembly seat from Orangi Town for the second consecutive time. A graduate of the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Mr Khurshidi was elevated to the slot of party’s parliamentary leader during the last term.
A statement issued by the PTI claimed that the PPP candidate for the CM, Mr Shah, contacted its members seeking their support for his election but it had decided to boycott the process. “We would boycott the election of CM Sindh,” said the PTI Sindh chapter president, Haleem Adil Sheikh.
“We don’t want to validate those who have become part of the legislative assembly after stealing the mandate of the people of Sindh. We would resist and take every step to regain our mandate through legal and democratic fight.”
When contacted, a spokesman of JI, which has one MPA in the Sindh Assembly, came up with the same response. In a brief reply to Dawn’s query, he said, “JI would not participate.”
ISLAMABAD: With its founder Imran Khan in prison, the leadership role has become a conundrum for PTI, as it has taken a U-turn and once again nominated Barrister Gohar Ali Khan for the party’s top post.
Mr Gohar was elected as PTI chairman after securing Mr Khan’s backing in the December 2023 intra-party elections, which led the party to being deprived of its ‘bat’ symbol by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Last week, the party decided to hold fresh polls on March 3 and named Barrister Ali Zafar as Mr Khan’s nominee for the post of chairman.
Speaking to the media outside Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, Barrister Gohar had announced Mr Zafar’s candidature.
Party sources say Mr Zafar has refused to accept the chairmanship.
It couldn’t be confirmed through independent sources if Mr Zafar has voluntarily refused or has been stopped by the party from submitting nomination papers.
“We have issued a bulletin regarding nomination papers, and all the information has been provided in it. I don’t have anything else to share,” said Raoof Hasan, who is also the party’s chief election commissioner.
According to details, the deadline to submit nomination papers ended at 3pm on Sunday, and only Mr Gohar submitted his candidature for the top post.
Omar Ayub Khan, along with a 15-member panel, has submitted nomination papers for the position of general secretary.
In Punjab, Dr Yasmin Rashid, who is currently in prison, is Mr Khan’s nominee to lead the party’s provincial chapter. So is Haleem Adil Sheikh in Sindh, Dr Munir Baloch in Balochistan and Ali Amin Gandapur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The victory of Mr Khan-backed candidates is almost guaranteed, but to meet ECP’s requirement and avoid any unopposed election, rival panels have also submitted nomination papers.
Ashraf Qureshi from Sindh, Muhammad Aslam from Balochistan, and Naveed Anjum from KP have submitted nomination papers, as per details stated by PTI.
In Punjab, Muhammad Khan Madni and Asad Hanif have submitted nomination papers for their panels. In Sindh, a panel headed by Khawand Bakhsh Ghulam Muhammad will also contest the election. In Balochistan, five different panels have submitted nomination papers.
A senior party official, wishing not to be named, told Dawn that Mr Gohar’s success is certain since the former prime minister has nominated him.
Unlike the December 2023 election, which was held in Peshawar, this time, the exercise will be held in Islamabad and all four provincial capitals, the PTI leader said, adding over six million party members would be allowed to cast their votes physically.
There would be four provincial commissioners to supervise the polls and the results would be declared by 8pm on March 3, and winners notified on the next day.
What did not appear so pronounced in politics has surfaced in the recent split electorate mandate: people’s urge for self-governance. An analyst says that the public has reclaimed the grounds that rightly belong to them by defying the chronic status quo and the culture of dread.
In the economic field, as evidenced by the mobility of labour, an increasing number of people are improving their livelihood and their quality of life by themselves. And human capital is turning out to be the most productive asset.
Landless peasants migrate to cities and towns for livelihood, and unskilled, skilled and top professionals find lucrative jobs in foreign countries.
An increasing number of young people, empowered by IT skills, work from home for companies located abroad. To cut costs, corporates everywhere prefer to hire consultants for specific assignments rather than retain talents and expertise. Self-employment is on the increase.
Similarly, job hopping is common among unskilled, skilled urban workers and highly qualified professionals. Apart from job hopping, anecdotal evidence suggests that to improve their earnings, even domestic female servants increasingly opt for piecework in two or three households rather than remain tied to one household job. These earnings help increase the income of poor families in the countryside.
In the post-election public discourse, one can witness growing awareness of what individuals can do to improve their lot, promoting collective national well-being
Workers remittances raise the standard of living and quality of life of millions. And in all areas of the country which receive substantial amounts of remittances, wages tend to go up. Besides, remittances provide several billions of dollars to reduce the country’s trade deficit and contribute significantly to consumption-led economic growth.
On the other hand, the state’s strong footprints in the economy and the rent–seeking culture it creates and nurtures are discouraging entrepreneurs and newcomers from helping build a competitive economy. The outcome is a flight of capital and brain drain. And the formal sector is induced to rely on an expanding informal sector for its sustenance and prosperity.
As corporate borrowings decline, commercial banks are reportedly willing to finance small businesses integrated with corporations as they tend to have reliable cash flows. The financial growth of small and medium enterprises results in development at the grassroots level and prosperity for all, says a banker.
In the post-election public discourse, one can witness growing awareness of what individuals and communities can do to improve their lot, promoting collective national well-being.
The new government’s focus should be to improve governance, without which the challenges facing the nation can’t be met
A citizen with insight says that if we (the young generation) do not want to be left behind, we must learn more in-demand skills. It will not only help us earn a good living as individuals but will also help our country in many ways. People get scammed when they focus on earning more money and not learning the skill.
Here, one may recall what social scientists said long ago: in the distant future, individuals acquiring about half a dozen trade skills would need to work only six hours with more productive, diverse and advanced means of production. Yet they would produce enough to meet human needs and earn a decent living while finding enough time to achieve a happier and fuller life.
In her article ‘Collective Action — For the People, by the People,’ Arhama Siddiqa, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, observes: With persistence and unity, communities can compel the leaders to pay heed to their voices (as recently demonstrated by the Capital Development Authority’s approval to build 146km long two-way cycling track across Islamabad) or collective action (such as building Sialkot airport).
The secret ingredient for community engagement, she says, lies in awareness regarding issues to bring social change.
Public pressure has helped bring about a consensus among major parties on the need to empower local governments to catalyse economic and social progress.
Looking at historical records, analysts say inorganic creations (political parties) have short shelf-lives and limited appeal and, despite widespread manipulation of the system, are rejected by voters. Only those political forces thrive that either turn away from their creators or look only to the people for legitimacy. They also note that the powerful have had a lot of trouble lately keeping the people under their thumb.
In the ongoing dialogue, both PML-N and PPP are reported to have recognised that the political party/parties forming the government cannot afford any further lapses in governance. The new government’s focus should be to improve governance, without which the challenges facing the nation can’t be met.
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, February 26th, 2024
ISLAMABAD: The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which is now home to the PTI-backed independent candidates who won the general election, might get its share of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies due to past precedent set by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), a senior official has told Dawn.
Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja will chair a crucial ECP meeting today (Monday) to decide on the reserved seats’ quota.
The matter has become of crucial importance since it is being reported as the “bone of contention” over which President Arif Alvi has delayed requisitioning the National Assembly session.
A senior ECP official told Dawn that the council is “set to get its share of reserved seats” in light of a precedent where candidates for the reserved seats were declared successful on submission of lists submitted after ECP’s deadline had elapsed.
After getting 23 reserved seats for women and minorities, the number of SIC members in the National Assembly will swell to 104.
The ECP has so far withheld the allocation of 78 out of the total 226 reserved seats for women in the national and provincial assemblies. These seats will go to SIC after ECP’s decision.
A few PTI-backed independents have still not joined the party to contest their intra-party elections.
Past precedent
The ECP official told Dawn that the commission is aware of the 21-day deadline to call the NA session after the general elections.
He added that the timeline will not elapse, as all assemblies are to hold inaugural sessions on or before February 29, as per the law.
The commission’s law wing will brief the meeting over the question of reserved seats, the official said, adding that even if no decision is reached today, a meeting will be held on Tuesday to finally decide the matter.
“I do not see a problem,” the official said when asked about the allocation of reserved seats to SIC.
He referred to a Lahore High Court judgement in 2018 as precedent in this case. The court held that the reserved seat quota of a party was non-transferable.
The question was raised after PTI failed to submit the list for minorities’ reserved seats in Punjab and did so after LHC’s hearing.
The case had gone to court after the returning officer refused to accept PTI’s lists of candidates for women and minorities’ seats due to a one-day delay in submission of the candidates’ names.
There is also a precedent of Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) getting a reserved seat for women in KP Assembly after the first post-merger elections in the erstwhile Fata.
The party didn’t contest the election in the province, but independents joined it, handing BAP a reserved seat for women.
Out of the total 60 reserved seats for women in the National Assembly, ECP has so far allocated 40 to different political parties.
These include 20 out of 32 of Punjab, two out of 10 of KP, all 14 of Sindh and all four of Balochistan.
Seven out of ten seats reserved for minorities have also been allocated.
In the Sindh Assembly, 27 out of 29 seats reserved for women and eight out of nine for minorities have been allocated.
Five out of 26 reserved seats for women and one out of four for minorities have been allocated in the KP assembly. In the Balochistan Assembly, all 11 reserved seats for women and three for minorities have been allocated.
• Dar says outgoing speaker to convene the maiden session if president fails; expects it by tomorrow • PPP, PML-N leaders urge head of state not to abuse powers
ISLAMABAD: With only three days left in the constitution-mandated deadline to summon the session of the National Assembly, President Arif Alvi has come under severe criticism from the political parties, particularly the PPP and the PML-N, for resorting to delaying tactics instead of convening the session of the lower house of parliament.
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that a summary requisitioning the session of the assembly was sent to the president by the parliamentary affairs division four days ago, but there has been no official response from President Alvi.
A National Assembly Secretariat official said the president was bound to summon the session within 21 days and if he failed to do so, then the NA secretariat could bypass him and summon the session under Article 91(2) of the Constitution. The official said the secretariat had already made necessary arrangements for the new assembly’s session.
Some reports claimed that the president may not call the session till the notification of the women lawmakers of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) on reserved seats. However, sources in the presidency were clueless about the decision on the summary.
At present, the Election Commission of Pakistan has yet to issue a notification on 20 seats reserved for women and three seats reserved for non-Muslim lawmakers. The PTI-backed independents who joined the SIC — which did not have any seats in NA — have 92 seats in the lower house. It may be noted a member of the SIC won one seat as an independent candidate.
Speaking about the delay in the notification on reserved seats, the official said the process required some time and the session of the National Assembly could not be delayed for this reason. The SIC has to abide by the constitutional process, such as submission of a list of women candidates for reserved seats. “If objections are raised on these lists then the political party will have to submit its responses before the ECP allocates these seats,” the official added.
He said such a situation had occurred many times in the past when the NA was conveyed even without by-election on the seats vacated by the returned candidates who were contesting from more than one seat.
“In 1988 general elections were held on Nov 10 and Benazir Bhutto became the prime minister on Dec 22. On that occasion, 16 seats became vacant…but the session was still summoned,” he said. Under the Pakistan Democratic Movement government, the National Assembly was functional for 16 months with 150 members as the PTI remained outside of the NA.
Caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi remained unavailable for comments.
Alvi attracts flak
PML-N and PPP leaders criticised the president for not summoning the session. PPP leader Shazia Marri said the president should not abuse his constitutional powers.
“President Alvi should not be loyal to an individual but the Constitution,” she said, adding if the president did not summon the session within the prescribed period his name then will be remembered among the violators of the Constitution.
Speaking to reporters in Lahore, PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar said that summoning the National Assembly session by Feb 29 was mandatory under the Constitution.
“A session of the elected assembly has to be summoned within 21 days from the polling day as per the Constitution. As polling had been held on Feb 8, it is mandatory to convene the new house of the National Assembly by Feb 29,” he said while talking to the media on the Punjab Assembly premises in Lahore.
The former finance minister said it is expected that the maiden National Assembly session would be summoned for Feb 27 as the parliamentary affairs minister had sent a summary for the purpose on Feb 21, but President Arif Alvi had not signed the document.
He said if President Alvi did not call the session by Feb 29, the outgoing speaker, Pervaiz Ashraf, would do so to comply with the constitutional requirement.
Answering a question about what would be the situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the governor was also not summoning the provincial assembly session, the PML-N leader said the case was also identical to the National Assembly.
“As general election has been held on Feb 8 simultaneously across the country, sessions of all the newly-elected assemblies must be convened by Feb 29 whether the President or Governor, whatever the case may be, summons a session or not.”
PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui said the president was serving on borrowed time as his tenure had already expired. He added Dr Alvi should not leave the presidency with another blot to his credit that he had not met the constitutional obligation of summoning the NA session within the prescribed timeline.
Kenneth Mitchell, a Canadian actor known for his roles on the series “Star Trek: Discovery” and the film “Captain Marvel,” died on Saturday. He was 49.
He had lived with the neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., which causes paralysis and death, for more than five years, according to a statement from Mr. Mitchell’s family posted to his social media.
Mr. Mitchell played the Klingons Kol, Kol-Sha, and Tenavik, as well as Aurellio, on “Star Trek: Discovery,” and voiced several other characters in an episode of “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”
In “Captain Marvel,” he played the father of the superhero, Carol Danvers. He was also known for portraying Eric Green on the series “Jericho,” Joshua Dodd in the series “Nancy Drew,” a hockey player in the film “Miracle,” and appeared in several other film and television series.
Mr. Mitchell lived with his wife, the actress Susan May Pratt, and their children in Los Angeles. He was born on Nov. 25, 1974, in Toronto to Diane and David Mitchell.
In 2018, Mr. Mitchell was diagnosed with A.L.S., according to a statement posted to his social media in August.
“This disease is absolutely horrific,” he said in the post, which accompanied a photo of Mr. Mitchell watching the sunset from a wheelchair on the beach. “Yet despite all the suffering, there is so much to be grateful for,” he added.
Mr. Mitchell is survived by his wife, their children Lilah and Kallum, his parentsand other family members, according to the family statement.
Congressional leaders have failed to reach a deal on legislation to keep federal funding going past Friday, with Republicans insisting on adding right-wing policy dictates to the spending bills, pushing the government to the brink of a partial shutdown within days.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Sunday that despite “intense discussions” that were continuing among top lawmakers to break the impasse, Republican recalcitrance was raising the prospect of a “disruptive shutdown” at midnight on Friday.
“While we had hoped to have legislation ready this weekend that would give ample time for members to review the text, it is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,” Mr. Schumer said in a letter to Democratic senators. “With the uncertainty of how the House will pass the appropriations bills and avoid a shutdown this week, I ask all senators to keep their schedules flexible, so we can work to ensure a pointless and harmful lapse in funding doesn’t occur.”
With no sign of a breakthrough, President Biden summoned congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to discuss the spending legislation, as well as the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel that the Senate passed earlier this month, which Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to take up.
But the more immediate task was to keep government spending from lapsing this week.
Three consecutive times over the last six months, Congress has relied on short-term, stopgap spending bills passed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers to keep government spending flowing, essentially punting on a longer-term agreement for several weeks at a time. Each time, the Republican speaker — first Kevin McCarthy, then Mr. Johnson — has promised hard-right lawmakers that they would try to win more spending cuts and conservative policy conditions on how federal money could be spent during the next round of negotiations.
Now, with patience wearing thin among ultraconservatives, pressure is mounting on Mr. Johnson, whose members want him to secure major cuts and policy changes that have no chance of enactment with Democrats in control of the Senate and White House. Lawmakers in the House, which has been out of session for the past week, are set to return to Washington on Wednesday, just two days before a deadline on Friday to fund military construction, agriculture, transportation and housing programs.
Funding for all other agencies, including the Pentagon, is set to lapse at midnight on March 8.
In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Johnson said he had been laboring to reach a compromise.
“Despite the counterproductive rhetoric in Leader Schumer’s letter, the House has worked nonstop, and is continuing to work in good faith, to reach agreement with the Senate on compromise government funding bills in advance of deadlines,” Mr. Johnson said, adding: “This is not a time for petty politics.”
Negotiators have continued to haggle over a series of partisan policy mandates that House Republicans had loaded into their spending bills, such as measures to restrict abortion access, that mainstream Republicans from competitive districts have refused to support.
Mr. Johnson in his statement on Sunday accused Senate Democrats of “attempting at this late stage to spend on priorities that are farther left than what their chamber agreed upon.”
Several House Republicans conceded weeks ago that they expected Mr. Johnson to have little success winning significant policy concessions. Mr. Johnson told Republicans on Friday during a conference call that they should not expect the inclusion of many of their major policy priorities, though he said he expected to secure a number of more minor victories, according to people familiar with the private discussion who described it on the condition of anonymity. Part of the reason they would have to settle for less, he explained, was that hard-right lawmakers had routinely blocked consideration of spending legislation, sapping the House’s leverage in talks with the Senate.
Instead, members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus have begun lobbying Mr. Johnson to instead pass a spending bill that would impose across-the-board cuts.
“If we are not going to secure significant policy changes or even keep spending below the caps adopted by bipartisan majorities less than one year ago, why would we proceed when we could instead pass a yearlong funding resolution that would save Americans $100 billion in year one?” they wrote in a letter to Mr. Johnson last week.
They were referring to a provision of the fiscal agreement made by Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Biden in May that would cut federal spending 1 percent across the board on April 30 if Congress could not reach a governmentwide spending deal before then.
But senators in both parties are determined to avoid that scenario because the cuts would particularly affect Pentagon spending.
