Daily Times Editorial March 17, 2013

Political deadlock looms The 18th Amendment to the constitution has laid down a three-layered procedure for appointing the caretaker Prime Minister (PM) after the National Assembly (NA) is dissolved. By the time these lines appear in print, that event will have come to pass at midnight on the night of March 16-17. The procedure laid down is that the government, represented by the outgoing PM, and the opposition, represented by the Leader of the Opposition (LoO), are supposed to agree on a consensus candidate for caretaker PM. In practice of course, this eminently rational procedure has been beset by the usual perambulations of our political culture. The names for caretaker PM put forward by the government have been rejected in toto by Chaudhry Nisar, the LoO, and the names put forward by the latter, of which he has himself withdrawn one, have been rejected by the government side. Although the redoubtable Chaudhry says the process of consultations will continue, time is running out. If there is no agreement between the two sides within three days of the dissolution of the NA, the issue goes to an eight-member parliamentary committee with equal representation of the treasury and opposition. If in turn the parliamentary committee is unable to arrive at a consensus from the list of names presented by the government and opposition or any new names it may come up with itself within three days, the choice will be that of the election commission. The way things have developed between the government and the opposition, it looks uncertain whether the parliamentary committee will be able to do any better a job of finding a consensus candidate for caretaker PM than the outgoing PM and LoO have managed. At the provincial level, the picture is that of a mixed bag. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has led the rest of the provinces by agreeing on a caretaker Chief Minister (CM) in the shape of Justice (retd) Tariq Pervez, a respected member of the judiciary. Outgoing CM Ameer Haider Khan Hoti announced the decision at a press conference on Friday, indicating that unlike the national LoO and the outgoing PM, he had not written letters to the LoO in KP but had simply gone over and talked to Akram Khan Durrani until they arrived at an agreement. This instance seems more in line with and imbued by the democratic spirit of what the amended constitution intended. If only the Centre and the other provinces could take a leaf out of KP’s book, the country may be spared more angst and uncertainty. Alas, it does not look like that is about to happen. In Sindh, the PPP and the MQM, the latter as now the largest ‘opposition’ party, have exchanged names of candidates. The other opposition parties, PML-F, PML-LM too have put forward their favoured names. It may well be that an agreement will be hammered out in Karachi within the deadline. In Punjab and Balochistan however, there are complications. After the meeting of the four CMs with the PM, the only point of agreement to emerge was that the national and provincial elections would be held simultaneously, but there was no agreement on the simultaneous dissolution of the provincial assemblies, despite the fact that at one point it seemed that March 19 had been agreed for the purpose. The fly (ies) in the ointment were that Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif did not want to commit till he had consulted his elder brother and party chief Nawaz Sharif, who happens to be abroad. Restored Balochistan CM Aslam Raisani seems to have reversed himself after the meeting with the PM. A constitutional crisis looms again in the province. The framers of the 18th amendment seem to have relied first and foremost on the political maturity of the actors settling these matters in order to ensure a smooth democratic transition. However, they kept their powder dry by seeing to it that fall back procedures would ensure the matter was settled one way or the other in the event that the stakeholders fell back onto their usual antics. This is where we seem to be today. May the people of Pakistan be blessed with wise leaders who can see beyond their nose.