The plan was to create a constitutional vacuum and lead it into an extra-constitutional situation. The goal would be a caretaker government that would be extended and remotely controlled, if the grapevine is to be believed.
The opportunity was created by delayed census results. In a presentation to the cabinet in October, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said they could not give final census results before April 2018. Why couldn’t you do it earlier, they were asked by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who himself is an engineer. We didn’t have manpower and the equipment to do it earlier. We are already doing two shifts, said the reps of the FBS.
We will provide you the equipment; do a three-shift operation and get it done, said the new chief executive who was sworn in barely two months ago. ‘No’ was the answer from the FBS. They just threw their hands up, said a senior cabinet colleague while talking to TFT.
The Election Commission of Pakistan approached the government, saying that it needed at least five months to complete delimitation and submit a final report to parliament by April. Mid-November is the latest we need the census results to finish our job on time, said the ECP to the government. Article 51(5) of the Constitution created a problem. It said, “The seats in the National Assembly shall be allocated to each province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the federal capital on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published.”
The demographic changes that were reflected through the provisional data were huge. It had decreased Punjab’s population to the extent that given the current National Assembly’s 272 general seats at least 7 Punjab seats needed to be slashed. This gave 5 new seats to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three additional seats to Balochistan and one to the federal capital. So holding elections on the 1998 census made no sense on several grounds.
For one, it would not be acceptable to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and would be open to public interest litigation. It would be unconstitutional to hold elections under the 1998 census once the final census results come out in April. The only solution to avoid the crisis, suggested by legal wizards, was to amend the constitution by allowing the ECP to process delimitation on the basis of provisional census results.
A meeting of the parliamentary parties was held by Speaker Ayaz Sadiq in early November and was attended by all. All of them agreed to amend the constitution. The speaker was jubilant in the press conference but the next meeting, PPP representative Naveed Qamar raised the red flag. He rose from his seat and demanded the Council of Common Interests be convened. Legally he was right, but actually the strings were being pulled from the top by the former president, revealed sources. The reasons were twofold. It was a difficult time for the rival N league that couldn’t pass the amendment from the Senate as the PPP was the single largest party with 27 senators. By pushing the government hard, they could get some relief from the security establishment, was the thinking, say insiders. The amendment bill arrived on the Senate floor on November 16 and sat there for more than a month as four attempts failed. The situation helped naysayers and conspiracy theorists, predicting a technocratic set-up on the evening chat shows. But then the party old guard with strong democratic DNA prevailed. They got the receptive ears of young party chairman Bilawal who persuaded the former president to go ahead for the amendment. Aitzaz Ahsan, Khursheed Shah and Sherry Rehman from the PPP side played a main role and stayed engaged till the last hour, while a handful of the PPP guys tried to play the spoiler, revealed sources.
From the government side, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, who kept firing warning shots, also played the lead role in persuading the PPP, while railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique pulled the democracy locomotives at night.
The former president was clearly told that an extended caretaker setup was a trap that could lead everyone into no man’s land. Right now we have at least the Sindh government. With that gone, what we would cling to, he was asked. Finally Sherry Rehman and Khursheed Shah, a two-member interlocutor team, was assigned the task to negotiate with the government, say sources.
The situation was so tense that mild-mannered Ayaz Sadiq had to express his fears of a rollback of the political system and a premature death of parliament. Earlier, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani told senators that it was not his responsibility to remind the house but they must wake up and pass the amendment so that the elections could be held on time.
Finally, on Friday December 15, the prime minister was conveyed the message by silver-haired PPP stalwart and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Aitzaz Ahsan, that they had agreed on the 24th amendment of the constitution to hold delimitation on the provisional data of the census provided that 5% of census data would be verified by a third party as agreed to in the Council of Common Interests meeting.
On Sunday afternoon the phones of PPP Senators vibrated and the message came through loud and clear. Be on the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon to pass the 24th amendment.
“I am headed there but I hope nothing bad happens in the last meeting,” Farhatullah Babar told TFT.
Tuesday was a big day for the Senate, presided over by the eternal democrat, a ponytailed Raza Rabbani, who had asked the COAS, DGMO and DG ISI to brief the entire committee of the Senate about internal and external security. And on the heels of the session, started the next session to pass the 24th amendment. After the division of the house, when votes were counted, 84 senators had voted for the amendment. For a two-third required votes, only 69 were needed. Only one vote was cast against the amendment by PML-Q Senator Kamil Ali Agha who retires on March 11.
With the 24th amendment passed, the only goal post to cross remains the Senate elections on March 2. On March 12 when the new Senate takes oath, the only matter that remains to be tackled is the nomination of the caretaker prime minister.
After Senate elections are over, no early elections would suit any party. Dissolving assemblies in March means holding elections in June which is too hot to handle. We have never had elections in June.
It is most probable that parliament will be dissolved just a couple of days before its term expires on May 31. The month of Ramadan starts mid-May and lasts till mid-June. No election campaign is possible during that period. By dissolving the assemblies a couple of days before their term expires, one adds one more month in the life of a caretaker government, giving all parties two months to campaign to hold elections by the end of August or in the first week of September, say insiders.
The writer is a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad. He tweets as @murtazasolangi
The opportunity was created by delayed census results. In a presentation to the cabinet in October, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said they could not give final census results before April 2018. Why couldn’t you do it earlier, they were asked by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who himself is an engineer. We didn’t have manpower and the equipment to do it earlier. We are already doing two shifts, said the reps of the FBS.
We will provide you the equipment; do a three-shift operation and get it done, said the new chief executive who was sworn in barely two months ago. ‘No’ was the answer from the FBS. They just threw their hands up, said a senior cabinet colleague while talking to TFT.
The Election Commission of Pakistan approached the government, saying that it needed at least five months to complete delimitation and submit a final report to parliament by April. Mid-November is the latest we need the census results to finish our job on time, said the ECP to the government. Article 51(5) of the Constitution created a problem. It said, “The seats in the National Assembly shall be allocated to each province, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the federal capital on the basis of population in accordance with the last preceding census officially published.”
The party old guard with strong democratic DNA prevailed. They got the receptive ears of young party chairman Bilawal who persuaded the former president to go ahead for the amendment
The demographic changes that were reflected through the provisional data were huge. It had decreased Punjab’s population to the extent that given the current National Assembly’s 272 general seats at least 7 Punjab seats needed to be slashed. This gave 5 new seats to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three additional seats to Balochistan and one to the federal capital. So holding elections on the 1998 census made no sense on several grounds.
For one, it would not be acceptable to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and would be open to public interest litigation. It would be unconstitutional to hold elections under the 1998 census once the final census results come out in April. The only solution to avoid the crisis, suggested by legal wizards, was to amend the constitution by allowing the ECP to process delimitation on the basis of provisional census results.
A meeting of the parliamentary parties was held by Speaker Ayaz Sadiq in early November and was attended by all. All of them agreed to amend the constitution. The speaker was jubilant in the press conference but the next meeting, PPP representative Naveed Qamar raised the red flag. He rose from his seat and demanded the Council of Common Interests be convened. Legally he was right, but actually the strings were being pulled from the top by the former president, revealed sources. The reasons were twofold. It was a difficult time for the rival N league that couldn’t pass the amendment from the Senate as the PPP was the single largest party with 27 senators. By pushing the government hard, they could get some relief from the security establishment, was the thinking, say insiders. The amendment bill arrived on the Senate floor on November 16 and sat there for more than a month as four attempts failed. The situation helped naysayers and conspiracy theorists, predicting a technocratic set-up on the evening chat shows. But then the party old guard with strong democratic DNA prevailed. They got the receptive ears of young party chairman Bilawal who persuaded the former president to go ahead for the amendment. Aitzaz Ahsan, Khursheed Shah and Sherry Rehman from the PPP side played a main role and stayed engaged till the last hour, while a handful of the PPP guys tried to play the spoiler, revealed sources.
From the government side, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, who kept firing warning shots, also played the lead role in persuading the PPP, while railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique pulled the democracy locomotives at night.
The former president was clearly told that an extended caretaker setup was a trap that could lead everyone into no man’s land. Right now we have at least the Sindh government. With that gone, what we would cling to, he was asked. Finally Sherry Rehman and Khursheed Shah, a two-member interlocutor team, was assigned the task to negotiate with the government, say sources.
The situation was so tense that mild-mannered Ayaz Sadiq had to express his fears of a rollback of the political system and a premature death of parliament. Earlier, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani told senators that it was not his responsibility to remind the house but they must wake up and pass the amendment so that the elections could be held on time.
Finally, on Friday December 15, the prime minister was conveyed the message by silver-haired PPP stalwart and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Aitzaz Ahsan, that they had agreed on the 24th amendment of the constitution to hold delimitation on the provisional data of the census provided that 5% of census data would be verified by a third party as agreed to in the Council of Common Interests meeting.
On Sunday afternoon the phones of PPP Senators vibrated and the message came through loud and clear. Be on the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon to pass the 24th amendment.
“I am headed there but I hope nothing bad happens in the last meeting,” Farhatullah Babar told TFT.
Tuesday was a big day for the Senate, presided over by the eternal democrat, a ponytailed Raza Rabbani, who had asked the COAS, DGMO and DG ISI to brief the entire committee of the Senate about internal and external security. And on the heels of the session, started the next session to pass the 24th amendment. After the division of the house, when votes were counted, 84 senators had voted for the amendment. For a two-third required votes, only 69 were needed. Only one vote was cast against the amendment by PML-Q Senator Kamil Ali Agha who retires on March 11.
With the 24th amendment passed, the only goal post to cross remains the Senate elections on March 2. On March 12 when the new Senate takes oath, the only matter that remains to be tackled is the nomination of the caretaker prime minister.
After Senate elections are over, no early elections would suit any party. Dissolving assemblies in March means holding elections in June which is too hot to handle. We have never had elections in June.
It is most probable that parliament will be dissolved just a couple of days before its term expires on May 31. The month of Ramadan starts mid-May and lasts till mid-June. No election campaign is possible during that period. By dissolving the assemblies a couple of days before their term expires, one adds one more month in the life of a caretaker government, giving all parties two months to campaign to hold elections by the end of August or in the first week of September, say insiders.
The writer is a broadcast journalist based in Islamabad. He tweets as @murtazasolangi