Mr Pirzada, don’t sabotage the consensus

 

By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

LONDON: The historic signing of the unanimously passed 18th Amendment into an act of parliament by President Asif Ali Zardari was the finest moment in the nation’s history.

The nation has had a roller-coaster existence ever since the first extra-constitutional intervention by the Praetorian-civil bureaucratic establishment unscrupulously sanctified by the apex judiciary in 1953, which plunged the Quaid’s dream of a democratic Pakistan into an unending obscurantist nightmare.

While the president affixed his signatures to go down in Pakistan’s history abdicating his absolute powers to gift the nation with the priceless dividend of the supremacy of parliamentary democracy, satisfaction was seen on the faces of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and a galaxy of top political leadership of the country.

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, chairman of the Constitutional Reforms Committee and his colleagues who burnt midnight oil for months to perform a “consensus-based constitutional miracle”, will now sleep in peace for having performed a feat that was considered impossible by doomsayers.

Both Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who fathered the 1973 constitution and his daughter Benazir Bhutto, who gave her life to seek its restoration in its original glory, must be happy in heaven over the historic feat.

It speaks in volumes of the evolution of political development in Pakistan through blood, toil and tears of hundreds and thousands of people who braved the most atrocious dictators anointed as legitimate by the successive chief justices and pliable members of superior judiciary, more interested in their pound of flesh rather than abide by the oath they undertook to defend the constitution.

The 19th of April made every Pakistani proud when not only President Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif were at the Presidency, but heads of all the political parties that participated in the 18th amendment deliberations, including ANP leader Asfandyar Wali, Fazlur Rehman of the JUI, Dr Farooq Sattar of the MQM and other members of parliament.

In my view, the democracy was at its supreme that day and every one of us rightly felt proud to be Pakistanis.

However, one is flabbergasted at the attitude of some the so-called constitutional experts, who in their hay-days were champions of constitutional democracy.

But now they are playing the role of summer soldiers and sunshine patriots, apparently without a trace of a dictator. Or do they smell their boots? Who knows?

The other day Abdul Hafeez Pirzada was piggish and unhappy over four of the constitutional amendments – (a) powers of the prime minister and party leaders, (b) provincial autonomy and the abolition of the Concurrent List, (c) human rights violation due to accumulation of powers in a single person (party leader), and (d) appointment of the judiciary.

Mr Pirzada’s major objection concerns a party leader’s powers to recall the prime minister being elected by the people.

Mr Pirzada must be aware of the fact that as in the 1973 constitution, the 18th Amendment was the result of party politics and each participating party kept its party position in view while deliberating these amendments.

Political parties represent country’s political institutions. Therefore, it is superfluous to demonise the political parties or their heads by undermining the prime minister who represents a political party for having re-acquired the powers that belonged to that office in the original 1973 constitution.

Whether it is the developing or the developed world, parliamentary democracy revolves around political parties. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi is a party leader and derives her strength from the party as its president. Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher did not loose the vote of confidence in the parliament, but their party made them to resign as prime ministers.

In a parliamentary democracy it is the party which remains supreme not the offices of the president or prime ministers.

Human rights of the people have not been violated (which is the third objection of Mr Pirzada) by making the party leader strong, who, in any case remains strong by virtue of his party’s position in the assembly.

As regards Mr Pirzada’s objection to Concurrent List and the provincial autonomy, let me remind him of the provincial autonomy he used to plead along with Mr Mumtaz Bhutto, when the duo discovered quantum of provincial autonomy insufficient.

From being a champion of confederation to strong centre, Mr Pirzada has forgotten the fact that the abolition of the Concurrent List represents the collective will of the people of the country, which should serve to lessen the differences between the provinces.

Ironically, some novices in the media and politics are whining over hereditary politics. In a country still suffering from mass illiteracy, feudalism, nepotism and frequent visitations of martial laws, how they can expect British or American type of democracy without fulfilling the conditions prevailing in those societies.

India, with uninterrupted civilian rule has not come out of the “Nehru dynasty”. But before passing a judgment, it needs to be determined whether these “dynasties” have done good or bad for the country. The detractors of “Bhutto dynasty” will have to first match their charisma amongst the people and their sacrifices for the country. The Bhutto legacy continues to rule the hearts and minds of the toiling masses from their graves while those who betrayed the Bhuttos have no doubt survived but only as monumental pygmies.

 

April 21, 2010

 

Last updated: 22 April 2010