Daily Times Editorial March 27, 2010

Nawaz’s betrayal

The unexpected and inexplicable are the warp and woof of our national life. In politics in particular, all that is seemingly solid melts into the air, that air is thick with the fog of confusion, vested interests and lobbies reign supreme, and principle is banished from our shores. The reference here is obviously to the last minute u-turn and betrayal of democracy perpetrated by none other than our very own Nawaz Sharif. The constitutional reform committee under Senator Raza Rabbani, comprising representatives from all the parties in parliament, including the PML-N, has been burning the midnight oil for the last nine months to get a consensus document agreed to take the form of a bill that will go down as the 18th constitutional amendment. The final agreed draft, with which not everyone on the committee was equally happy, that being the nature of a consensus between disparate points of view, was ready to see the light of day after all that sweat and toil and be presented in a joint session of parliament to be addressed by President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday. On the eve of this historic endeavour to undo the nastiest bits of the 17th amendment and all the other distortions in the constitution authored by Generals Musharraf and Zia, keeping in mind the spirit and letter of the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and PML-N, the latter’s ‘chief’ decided to do some scalping of his own. Expressing ‘reservations’ on the agreed draft, Nawaz unashamedly backed out of his party’s commitment to support the 18th amendment bill. As even a child knows, without the support of the PML-N, the necessary two-thirds majority in parliament for passing a constitutional amendment is an impossibility at present. That effectively means that Nawaz has sabotaged the labours of not only all the other parties on the reform committee, but even cut the rug from under the feet of his own representatives on the committee, forcing them to go ‘underground’ and hide their faces, whether out of shame or embarrassment or both, is irrelevant. Even senior leaders of the PML-N were seen and heard to be in a state of utter shock and confusion, which belies the afterthought that unresolved issues had been discussed in the party’s top leadership meeting, and hence the volte face.
A closer examination of the mumbled ‘objections’ of the Raiwind Mian however reveals not much substance, and a great deal of mealy-mouthed post-facto justifications. The two issues Nawaz referred to on which he had ‘reservations’ were the new process of judges’ appointments envisaged in the draft, and the issue of the renaming of NWFP province. One the former, the thrust of the document takes the procedure out of the exclusive domain of one individual (the Chief Justice, as the recent furore over appointments of superior courts judges showed) and places it squarely in a broad based institutional framework that not only seeks the advice of the Chief Justice and the superior courts’ senior judges, but also takes on board the government, opposition, Bar, etc. A consensus on candidates for the superior judiciary in such a forum and through such a transparent procedure promises to lay to rest the controversy that has dogged our history of the manipulation by now one side, now the other, of appointments in the superior courts. Where is the harm in that, especially since the PML-N’s own representatives agree with that appointments procedure? On the question of renaming NWFP, there has been a hiatus because the long awaited and promised meeting between Nawaz Sharif and the ANP leader Asfandyar Wali has still to take place because of Nawaz dragging his feet. The ostensible excuse till now was that he had been travelling, but now the cat is out of the bag. PML-N’s NWFP contingent is uneasy with the ANP-suggested name of Pakhtunkhawa. Is it not a matter of record though that the ANP has publicly committed itself to being flexible on the issue, even being prepared to contemplate a hyphenated name to take account of the Hindko speakers of the province? How then, can that be the reason for Nawaz’s betrayal?
The only explanation that makes any sense is that some power or agency outside the loop of the deliberations of the constitutional reforms committee has either persuaded, or worse, browbeaten the lion of Raiwind until he has taken on the appearance and character of a cat fished out of the water. The speculation that this could also be an attempt to deny the president the credit of addressing a historic joint session poised to wrinkle out the distortions introduced by military dictators in the constitution and thereby gain political capital and stature, may just be a by-product of the all too real sabotage of democracy that can now be squarely laid at the door of Nawaz Sharif.
The reactions across the board, barring a few squeaks of support from those on the margins of the political spectrum, have universally condemned Nawaz’s betrayal of the principles of democratic consolidation agreed to in the Charter of Democracy as well as his failure to see what impact his selfish and provincial stance will have in the country. It is obvious that the three smaller provinces, with most aggrieved NWFP in the forefront, are barely hiding their anger and affront behind polite words and relatively restrained criticism. Even in his ‘home’ constituency Punjab, no democrat, let alone those of a pro-people orientation, will easily forgive this treachery.