Daily Times Editorial March 19, 2013

Wheeling-dealing over caretakers By the time these lines appear in print, the deadline for deciding the name of the caretaker Prime Minister (PM) will have passed. On present form, it seems increasingly unlikely that the government and opposition will arrive at a consensus. Both sides have rejected each other’s list of names. In addition, Leader of the Opposition (LoO) Chaudhry Nisar has annoyed his party’s recently found electoral ally the JUI-F by withdrawing one of the names of the three originally put forward by the PML-N, that of Justice (retd) Shakirullah Jan. Since the matter seemed stalled, ‘new’ names began to circulate as candidates for caretaker PM, which actually were mostly the same old names that had been speculated on earlier, and most of whom had been rejected by one or the other side. Despite positive noises the government and opposition have continued to make about finding a consensus candidate through continuing dialogue, it appears unlikely that the issue will be resolved at the level of the outgoing PM and the LoO. Despite both sides’ reservations about allowing the issue to be relegated to and decided by the parliamentary committee, this too appears more and more likely. Chaudhry Shujaat is not unhappy at this possibility, since he is one of the members named on the committee by the government, giving him a say in the choice of caretaker PM. The opposition of course has so far not even listed its members for the committee, a task that has fallen foul of Chaudhry Nisar’s desire for a purely PML-N representation, which legal luminaries consider unconstitutional. Chaudhry Nisar’s intransigence in the face of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s demand that Justice (retd) Shakirullah Jan’s name be reinserted in the list of candidates for caretaker PM, and his public show of no confidence in the JUI-F’s participation in the parliamentary committee means that the committee may either not be formed, or fall foul of controversy and even rejection. That means Article 224-A will then kick in, reducing the list of candidates for caretaker PM to two each from either side, and transferring the decision to the election commission, which has only two days to take a decision. March 24, according to the constitutional timeline, is the ultimate cutoff date. As if things were not complicated enough at the Centre, Balochistan is the leading contender for a province that seems bogged down in political and constitutional crises. Outgoing Chief Minister (CM) Aslam Raisani is haemorrhaging political support from even his own party’s ranks. Seventeen members of his erstwhile coalition government, including alienated members of his own PPP, have tendered their resignations to the Governor and asked to be allowed to sit on the opposition benches. The situation is complicated by the fact that the original Speaker of the Assembly, Aslam Bhootani, was turfed out by the PPP-led coalition when he rejected Raisani’s desire for an Assembly session to take a vote of confidence. His replacement, Matiullah Agha, has declared Maulana Abdul Wasey as LoO, replacing the displaced LoO Nawab Tariq Magsi. Magsi went to the Balochistan High Court (BHC) against his dismissal as LoO and the BHC upheld his stance. Now the ‘new’ Speaker Matiullah Afghan wants to appeal in the Supreme Court against the BHC’s verdict. Meanwhile Magsi claims the support of 35-40 members now that a mass stampede of former government ministers and members has gone over to the opposition. They claim a majority over Raisani in the Assembly. Raisani says he will tender advice to dissolve the Assembly on March 19, having faced a revolt from within and therefore not even being able to hold a meeting of the provincial cabinet where he wanted to present his ‘agreements’ with President Asif Zardari in Islamabad. If your head is spinning by now, who can blame you? A right sorry mess indeed. The spectacle politicians are making of themselves at the federal and provincial levels when confronted with the task of agreeing a consensus caretaker PM and CMs will bring grist to the mill of the anti-democratic forces that argue our political class is hopeless and democracy is not for us. To the naysayers we can only say: despite these teething pains on terra incognita, the democracy project is nevertheless stumbling along, enough room exists for these issue s to be settled one way or the other, and the elections will take place and on time. That is both the irreducible necessity and best for the country.