It would seem President Ghulam Ishaq and PM Nawaz Sharif have a ball playing snakes and ladders. For proof, take a look a our mangled constitution. We see that it is becoming increasingly impotent in the face of new political crises. People are getting acutely frustrated with, and alienated from, this so-called system of democracy in which there is one set of rules for the government and another for the opposition. The crisis in Sindh demonstrates the cavalier attitude of Islamabad in all its decadence.
The Sindh assembly is trying to determine Who’s Who in the province. If the PDA is eventually able to elect its own Speaker, it could topple Mr Muzaffar Shah at will. Even if Mr Shah resorts to force and horsetrading, his survival will be short-lived. When the army targets some of the errant Sindhi MPs in his coalition, as it is bound to do, his coalition will fall. And we will be back to square one.
In the meanwhile, the army still has no proper constitutional cover for its actions, with the President having to consider yet another Ordinance to cover his dirty traces. Then there is the sordid matter of the MQM. The resignations of 12 MQM MNAs have been accepted by Mr Gauhar Ayub, the Speaker of the National Assembly, and the Chief Election Commissioner has announced bye-elections in 60 days. But MQM Minister Islam Nabi has now been prodded to withdraw his resignation and the Speaker has kindly obliged with nary a glance over his shoulder for legal niceties. On the other hand, the resignations of 24 MQM MPAs have not yet been accepted. The Speaker of the Sindh Assembly, whose resignation is also a matter of record, was, according to last reports, being persuaded by Islamabad to show up in the Assembly and take his seat. All we need now is for Mr Gauhar Ayub to retract and say he has not accepted the resignations of the MQM MNAs and to join the Chief Election Commissioner in accusing the press of conjuring up the resignations and bye-elections as a figment of its imagination. That such opportunistic manipulation amounts to a royal cock-up of the constitution is clearly lost on Islamabad. And as President Ghulam Ishaq and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif play havoc with the constitution, the political system is looking patently ridiculous and becoming increasingly untenable.
The real problem, of course, derives from the existence of a “troika of authorities” following the application of the 8th Amendment to the constitution in the post Zia ul Haq period. The 8th amendment was relevant only for the purposes of Gen Zia who was both COAS and President. In effect, it gave the armed forces a de jure role in political decision-making. That is why, despite its overtly undemocratic nature, it lent itself to stabilising the political system. A logical follow-up to Zia’s exit would have been for the then Vice-Army Chief, Gen Aslam Beg, to become COAS while stepping into the office of the Presidency and allowing the scheduled elections to take place for the appointment of the prime minister.
But, of course, that couldn’t happen, given the other provisions of the constitution which placed the Senate chairman,a civilian, in line for the all-powerful Presidency. so the 8th amendment overstayed its purpose and became a mill around the neck of the constitution. It legitimised the existence of two competing centres of power in Islamabad without undermining the conclusive source of power in Rawalpindi.
A troika, rather than a duality, of power is inherently unstable. By definition, it compels the political system to disequilibrium. And as long as it stays,there is no given way to resolve political crises.
We make a grave mistake by focusing on the various permutations and combinations of a solution to the Sindh problem. The crisis is not in Sindh, it is in the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The President ha gotten too big for his boots. If you remove the 8th amendment, nature will take its stable course.
The PDA would like to get rid of the 8th amendment and give the army a constitutional role in decision-making through a powerful Defence Committee of the Cabinet with its own full-time secretariat. This proposal merits careful consideration. By knocking out the third source of power, it will help the system acquire an equilibrium of power. It will also eliminate the possibility of misunderstanding between an elected and representative civilian government in Islamabad and the national security state apparatus of the army in Rawalpindi. It will lends stability to the system.
But the problem is this: as the system now stands, it is incapable of encorporating such changes on its own steam. So, realistically speaking, where is the solution to come from? Not from the President or the PM. The solution lies with the very institution which burdened us with Gen Zia ul Haq and is now finding it impossible to own up to his many treacherous legacies. The army brought in the 8th amendment. The army must now bid good riddance to it.