A Letter from Prometheus
I live in a country where we find solutions to everything, including legal and constitutional issues by coining new terms to justify what we do. Pakistan was the first democratic country in the 21st century (or maybe in the 20th century also) that had a “Chief Executive” (CE) whose name was General Musharraf. He ran the country as a CEO running a corporate company.
Whenever we have a legal or constitutional crisis we successfully come over it through coining ultra-constitutional dictions and recently we had “Trustee Chief Minister”– wow we have a solution to everything. Are we not exceptionally brilliant? Do we need a fluid constitution that can automatically keep changing its format according to Court verdicts, court observations as well as the orders of chief executives?
There is a dire need to change techniques altogether now because the majority of spectators is youth in Pakistan so the new season should terminate when we can have a completely new building of circus, with new rules of performance and with a new different ambiance. What can it be? It can be “presidential theatre” that will be a completely new genre for though this theatre worked several times, the performers were not civilians. Let it be this time with civilian performers.
Whenever there is a political crisis we move forward with innovations and there is always a political crisis in Pakistan so we always move forward actually. Since former prime minister Imran Khan was voted out from office by the National Assembly in April, politicians are spending over 20 percent of their time in courts and almost the same percentage they spend to remind themselves that they are not thieves and they are not traitors. Can we run the country with this pace and innovations?
There are several questions in the mind of every Pakistani who follows political developments in the country that actually steer the economic scene and the majority of the public is now openly demanding all those who run the country “do whatever you wish but do it once and for all and do not use this country as an experimental laboratory”.
New dictions, new rules, and innovative explanations of the Constitution are bringing nothing, just chaos after chaos. I believe our acceptance of every ultra and extra-constitutional decision is one of the core issues we are facing today since the 1988 Parliament accepted everything done by Martial Law Administrator Gen Ziaul Haq. The Post-Zia Parliament approved all unconstitutional decisions of Ziaul Haq and made them part of the 1973 Constitution and since then there is no full stop to this exercise. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP is now PPPP) validated the unconstitutional actions of Ziaul Haq stating that it had no other option.
I accept PPPP’s stand because former President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was representing the Establishment and he left no option for late former Prime Minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto just to stamp amendments in the constitution. She survived less than two years in power and was sent home when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed her government under the Eighth Amendment of the constitution that was validated by her. Former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif came into power and he had to resign in 1993 due to his bitter relations with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, then Benazir Bhutto again came into power and she again became a victim of 58(2B) and then again Nawaz Sharif came into power.
He was again sent home but this time through a Martial Law administrator who did wish to use the word “Martial Law Administrator” so he became Chief Executive of the country. The circus went on and PPPP and PML(N) had one more term (rather turn) each thereafter and the PML(Q) was formed that ran the country between the PML(N) and PPP rule with three different PMs in office– Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Ch Shujaat Hussain, and Shaukat Aziz.
What did we learn from the above? We learn that replacing an elected prime minister does not need constitutional power, it just needs a “will to do”. When there is a will, there is a way.
Pakistan’s political arena is no less than a theatre or a circus where there is only one “Master Dramaturge”. You can say this dramaturge is a “desire for something new and something interesting”. Whatever we watched in Punjab in the last three months was exceptional “out of the box” having no precedent and scenes were so colourful that we forgot the performances of Manzoor Watoo, late Ch Altaf Hussian, Farooq Leghari, and all who ruled the political stage of Punjab in he 90s.
We must accept that nobody could imagine that the offices of the Governor and the President could perform in such a way and they blocked all constitutional ways for Hamza Shahbaz’s attempt for a smooth entrance into the CM Office. I did not watch such interesting scenes in the Punjab Assembly ever before and even the venue of the performance was changed from the Assembly building to Aiwan-e-Iqbal Complex Lahore. Whatever we are watching today is new and novel but surely has a link with the past and will surely write a new future.
Politics in Pakistan is nothing more than a stage performance or a circus and it moves according to the script of the Master Dramaturge. Since former General Musharraf was unceremoniously sent home, the political cadre is facing the wrath of those who could never allow the political cadre to remove a star-studded General and his departure became a symbol that political powers can contest the powerful establishment.
The anti-parliamentarian public was losing interest in the political circus and cries were trimming the sky that the same old faces and same characters who had been tagged as corrupt and traitors could remove a person who dedicated his whole life to protecting the motherland. Now this was the time there was a need to introduce new faces and new characters and by the 2013 general elections we saw a charismatic Greek prince-like hero, Imran Khan, who could get only one or two seats in previous general elections emerge as the head of the third largest party in Parliament and by the 2018 general elections his demand was so high that he formed the government in Centre, Punjab, and KPK.
He is the only person in Pakistan who has a certified “‘Sadiq’ and ‘Ameen’ (honest and righteous)” status, announced by the Supreme Court of Pakistan; therefore he cannot be corrupt, traitor, thief, or liar. However, he kept losing his popularity, and old characters were still surviving in the circus world. What to do now? Like any popular theatre or circus, there was a need to terminate the performance and then come back with a “New Season”.
I think this new season will surely work out for quite some time but we understand there is a dire need to change techniques altogether now because the majority of spectators is youth in Pakistan so the new season should terminate when we can have a completely new building of circus, with new rules of performance, and with a new different ambiance. What can it be? It can be “presidential theatre” that will be a completely new genre for though this theatre worked several times, the performers were not civilians. Let it be this time with civilian performers.
I am sure it will work for some more decades. Political circles in Islamabad believe that former Prime Minister Imran Khan made a deal just before Punjab by-elections with the Establishment he had been cursing for his removal through “international Conspiracy”. However, such new :items indicate this deal has been altogether rejected by the Establishment. Instead of discussing whether there is a deal or not, I can tell you Khan desires a deal according to which he introduces a new political contract in the country. What would it be? I believe huge amendments in the 1973 constitution, if not the introduction of the presidential form of government. For onstitutional amendments, he needs a two-thirds majority and I believe his relaunching had already cleaned his failures in government during his 42 months of all-powerful tenure. He can easily emerge with a two-thirds majority if general elections would be held before November 2022.
And then we ca all say: Long Live Pakistan. Alnong with the Master Dramaturge
