POLITICS OF POLARIZATION (MALEEHA LODHI)

PEOPLE have much higher expectations of their leaders in times of crisis. They
seek a clear direction, reassurance, and above all, unity among public
representatives so that they work together to responsibly and purposefully address
the challenge. With the country faced with a national health emergency, the
expectation is that politics will be cast aside and national purpose prioritised over
politicking.

The political picture that has unfolded in the weeks since the virus struck is an
unedifying one. Rather than a national policy and a collective response being
evolved, the situation that emerged has been of provinces, especially Sindh, mostly
going their own way and the centre taking uncertain charge of the crisis.

The onus to forge a national consensus rested with the federal government. But the
opportunity was passed up despite offers for cooperation from the opposition. The
stated justification was that there could be no truck with those who looted public
money. In one fell swoop, the entire parliamentary membership was written off
and the chance to evolve an inclusive policy squandered. The result was to divide,
not unite, the country’s political forces.

The reluctance early in the crisis to frame a nationally agreed approach by

consulting the provinces is explicable only in terms of politics — a partisan
unwillingness to engage with opposition-led Sindh. That situation later improved
once new policy bodies with provincial representation were set up but not nearly
enough for a clear national narrative and policy to emerge. Arguments by
prominent ruling party ministers that the 18th Amendment allowed provinces to
choose their own path seemed a disingenuous effort to justify an abdication by the
centre.
Deeper reasons and a checkered political past lie behind such unseemly conduct.
The country does not have an inspiring record of political rivals working together.
The 1990s, to cite an example, marked a decade of intense political confrontation
and instability. Those at the receiving end of broadsides from ruling party members
today behaved similarly against their foes in the past and are therefore hardly
beyond reproach. Habits of tolerating the ‘other’ never took firm root in Pakistan’s
fitful democracy. Locking up opposition leaders and slandering them has a long
history. Polarised politics is therefore hardly new.

ORDINANCES vs DEMOCRACY

IF there is a least democratic feature of our democratic Constitution, it is the power

given to the executive to legislate in case parliament is not in session and the
president is satisfied that the circumstances exist to warrant the promulgation of an
ordinance.

Since the very essence of democracy lies in the framing of laws by legislatures
elected by the people, any part of the responsibility of lawmaking taken away from
the legislature under whatever pretext dilutes the democratic character of the
Constitution. This is why an overwhelming

majority of democratic countries have no provision of legislation by decree or

executive. Only a handful of countries, numbering no more than 10, retain such a
provision in their Constitution, and in most such cases, it is the legacy from the
time when colonial powers were experimenting with the handing over of powers to
locals but retaining the power to legislate for themselves. Even the British
parliamentary system that we inherited does not have any provision of legislation
by the executive.

Legislation in a democratic system passes through a number of stages. Initial drafts

of new laws are generated by political parties or their members. Political parties
internally debate the draft informally or formally and refine it. The ruling party
may decide to adopt it as a government bill, or an individual member from the
treasury or the opposition may introduce it as a private member’s bill.

Government bills are examined by the ministry concerned, the law ministry, and
approved by the cabinet. The bill is then introduced in one of the two houses of
parliament where normally it is referred to the standing committee concerned.
Committees, where members of almost all parliamentary parties are present,
undertake a detailed scrutiny of the bill. Sometimes experts, officials and civil
society representatives are also invited to committee meetings for consultation and
input.

After the standing committee has passed the bill with or without amendments, the
report is placed before the entire house. Usually the house does not debate the bill
in depth if the committee has already examined it in detail. However, the full house
has the power to further amend the bill. After the house passes the bill, it is
referred to the other house where again the concerned standing committee reviews
it and returns to the full house for approval. When a bill has been passed by both
houses, it is forwarded to the president for assent. Obtaining that, it becomes a law.

Presidential assent is generally considered a formality though the president has the
power to return the bill to the legislature for reconsideration. However, if a joint
session of parliament passes the bill, it is considered final. In some rare cases, the
two houses do not agree on a bill, and at that point, a joint session of parliament
consisting of both the Senate and National Assembly eventually decides the final
version of the bill.

The normal legislative procedure is narrated here to illustrate that the Constitution
accords a high degree of importance to the system of checks and balances involved
in legislation. In case the legislative process is cut short, as in the case of
ordinances, a whole lot of necessary input, review and incorporation of diverse
points of view from elected representatives of various geographic regions, parties,
gender and ideologies goes missing. In a diverse country like Pakistan, short-
circuiting the legislative process can be hazardous.

Article 89 of the Constitution allows the president to promulgate an ordinance

under extraordinary circumstances but if we retrace the journey of ordinances since
1973, it would be difficult to identify an ordinance which could not wait the
convening of the next session of either house of parliament. Most of the time,
governments have resorted to ordinances for two main reasons.

First, our scheme of elections is such that when a new political party manages to
gain a majority in the National Assembly and form the government, the Senate
composition continues to reflect the party position at the time of the last Senate
election. This results in a time lag of about two years or so when the Senate
elections are held and the ruling party is able to gain a majority in the Senate. Till
that time, the Senate generally has a majority of the opposition and unless the
ruling party is ready to seriously engage with it, the opposition by its sheer
numbers can block legislation in the Senate. Our constitutional scheme
intentionally wants the treasury and the opposition to work in an inclusive manner
so that a broad agreement on legislation may develop.
Sadly, governments often want to have their laws passed unilaterally and that’s
where ordinances come in handy. There are occasions when ordinances are
promulgated just a few hours before a house of parliament is to meet. On some
other occasions, assembly sessions were prorogued so that an ordinance could be
promulgated.

The second reason for favouring ordinances is that it saves the government team
the hard work it has to put into the standing committees and the two houses of
parliament in defending the legislation and answering questions including those
asked by their treasury colleagues.

Unfortunately, our democratic system is becoming increasingly exclusive and

engagement with the opposition has been given a bad name. Our parliament has
been unable to appoint members of the Election Commission because of this
approach and now our assemblies cannot pass laws.

Ordinances are no solution as the opposition majority can pass a resolution in the
Senate and reject an ordinance. If we do not want our democratic system to
become totally dysfunctional, we should make peace with the idea of engagement
between the opposition and the treasury. We should not forget that the 18th
Amendment, irrespective of its merits or demerits, was passed not too long ago by
a government which lacked a two-third majority but engaged with the opposition
parties to produce a near-unanimous package of constitutional amendments
covering more than a quarter of the Constitution.

JARRING JUSTICE
A dysfunctional justice system erodes citizens’ trust in state institutions. The void
is filled by parallel systems, not restricted to jirgas. Attention is diverted from real
issues such as poverty, health, education and jobs while politically motivated cases
are played out with the media airing images of the handcuffed accused flashing
victory signs. The state loses scarce resources either due to trumped-up charges or
willy-nilly prosecution, and the courts generally lose whatever little respect the
public had for them. The higher an undertrial is placed in the privilege order, the
sooner health conditions warranting relocation to a posh hospital emerge. The
commando types manage it on their way to court.
While the rich and powerful secure future claims to power for the time spent
behind bars albeit on waterbeds in airconditioned rooms, the poor are left to rot in
jails, unheard and unseen, convicted for murders they did not commit or the goat
they never stole. Worse off are those who spend lifetimes in most horrendous
prison conditions without any charges ever being brought against them.
Rani Bibi, a 13-year-old child bride from a Punjab village, was arrested for
allegedly killing her husband. In 2001, she was sentenced to life imprisonment.
She swept floors and cooked for inmates for almost two decades because the jail
warden ‘forgot’ to file her appeal in the high court. Finally, in 2017, Rani was set
free by the Lahore High Court for want of evidence.
If you think this is the height of injustice, wait. The system does not just snatch
people’s freedoms, it robs them of imagination. When this poor soul got out, guess
what she aspired to by way of compensation for the injustice meted to her? A bed,
bed linen, a stove, an iron, and yes, a grand ransom from the state — a washing
machine. Stunned? Wait, the chairman of the Pakistan Baitul Mal traced the
wronged woman, and sent his minions to make up for the horrors she suffered. She
was reportedly provided, “a gas cylinder with a burner, two charpoys and bed-sets,
blankets, ration, three ladies suits, and two for men”. She also got a cheque for a
royal sum of Rs 60,000. This comes to approximately Rs 3000 for every year she
spent in jail.
Part of the court order that released her from jail read “the court feels helpless in
compensating her”. Actually, the superior courts and the legislature can institute
judicial reforms, and improve prosecution and investigation. The judiciary should
seek a budget to deal with a decades-old backlog of cases instead of asking
donations from the public to construct dams. Judicial activism is better exercised
within the realm of the provision of justice as sundry causes like sugar and CNG
pricing, and operation of malls will find their own knights in shining armour — no
allusion whatsoever to Ertugrul.
 PARLIAMENTARY SCRUITINY?

VERY few people realise that the budget for the next financial year (2020-21) will,
for the first time since the adoption of the 1973 Constitution, be presented under a
new law called the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), 2019, instead of the
stopgap arrangement of following the rules made by the president of Pakistan.
The PFMA has many useful aspects only if parliamentarians are able to make
proper use of them. For example, the budget strategy paper which until recently
was a jealously guarded document known only to a chosen few in the Finance
Division and the federal cabinet, is now required to be not only discussed with the
parliamentary committees on finance in the Senate and the National Assembly but
also to be published on the Finance Division’s website for the benefit of the
general public as well.
The PFMA has many useful aspects only if parliamentarians are able to make
proper use of them. For example, the budget strategy paper which until recently
was a jealously guarded document known only to a chosen few in the Finance
Division and the federal cabinet, is now required to be not only discussed with the
parliamentary committees on finance in the Senate and the National Assembly but
also to be published on the Finance Division’s website for the benefit of the
general public as well.
Another interesting feature of the PFMA covered in Section 34 of the Act, makes it
compulsory for the federal government to place the mid-year review reportbefore
the National Assembly by Feb 28 each year. This is a significant breakthrough as
the legislature never knew in the past how the budget was being executed and what
the status of revenues and expenditures was until the next year’s budget was
presented. The Finance Division submitted the current financial year’s mid-year
report to the speaker of the National Assembly on Feb 21, a week before the
deadline set in the law.
It would be far more useful for the National Assembly to receive and critically
examine the year-end government performance monitoring report which is
promised under Section 35 of the Act. This report will, however, not be available
till end of 2022 when the first performance monitoring report for the financial year
2021-22 will be presented after which the report will be presented every year
within six months of close of the financial year. This and other reports to be
submitted by the government to parliament will be useful only if parliament and its
committees are willing and equipped to undertake their much-needed oversight
function in an effective manner.
Traditionally, the committees have not been very active in the context of oversight
of the executive. As a pilot, the finance committee should be provided the
necessary resources to hold the government accountable for its financial policies
and discipline. The committee should, in the meantime, network with a number of
independent economists and think tanks and hold public hearings on the mid-year
budget development report and the year-end government performance report to
enable itself to communicate parliament’s feedback to the government.
It is ironic that while the executive is taking initial steps to present its performance
before parliament, the latter itself is not moving in that direction. A key reform that
is urgently needed is that the Finance Bill, like all other bills laid before the
National Assembly, should be referred to the finance committee for detailed
examination before it is debated and passed in the plenary. The National Assembly
should also extend its period of budget scrutiny and debate from the present
average of 14 days to around 45 days so that the demands for grants of various
ministries and divisions can be forwarded to the concerned committees for detailed
scrutiny.
At some point, Article 84, which apparently allows the executive to alter the
budget approved by the National Assembly in any way it deems fit during the year
without prior approval by the Assembly, should be amended. The executive’s
unbridled powers to alter the approved budget runs counter to the basic principles
of democracy and the sooner we get rid of this embarrassing provision in the
Constitution, the better.

THE NEW ECP’S CHALLENGES

Besides the conduct of elections, the new ECP will face numerous other challenges
which it would not be successfully able to meet without the support of the people
and the state. The foremost is that of credibility which is becoming more intense
with every election. Each of the past 11 general elections has been confronted with
a peculiar set of issues. But the widespread rigging of the 1977 poll, the
involvement of some state intelligence agencies in creating and supporting certain
electoral alliances in 1988 and 1990 elections, the PTI’s 126-day dharna against
the alleged (later disproved by a judicial commission) rigging in the 2013 general
election, and lately Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s ‘Azadi march’ against alleged
rigging in the 2018 general poll have seriously dented the credibility of and public
trust in the electoral system.
Despite some improvement in the last two general elections, the low average voter
turnout in Pakistan (46 per cent) compared to that in India (60pc) and Bangladesh
(64pc) is generally attributed to weak public trust in the credibility of our electoral
system and, more specifically, the ECP. Without restoring the credibility of
electoral system and the ECP, overall democratic governance in the country will
greatly suffer. The ECP needs to work very hard to analyse the root cause of this
weak public trust and then address those causes in a systematic manner. Although
pre-poll manipulations constitute the latest trend in influencing the electoral
outcome, controlling these may not fall within the purview of the ECP. The
challenge for the commission, however, is to protect the integrity of the election
from pre-poll assaults.
Another reason for low credibility is the inability to effectively monitor and control
political finance in the country. For example, when people see election spending
way beyond the ceiling set by the law but the ECP is unable to take action, the
credibility of the electoral process and the commission suffers in their eyes.
Election expenses, contributions to political parties and scrutiny of statements of
assets and liabilities submitted by legislators are some critical aspects of political
finance. The capacity of the ECP to monitor and control political finance in the
country needs major improvements. The ECP established a political finance wing
some time back but both the quality and quantity of its staffing needs urgent
attention. Most effective checks on excessive spending by candidates are possible
through effective monitoring of the election campaign at the constituency level, as
India has successfully done over the past elections.
The ECP staff needs augmentation both in terms of quantity and quality. The 18th
Amendment added local government elections to the responsibilities of the ECP
but this additional duty did not come with the required enhancement of human
resources. The ECP should not only be given additional staff, it should also review
its rules to enhance the quality and capacity of the existing staff. Continuous
training of its staff is a must and the Elections Training Academy established
within the ECP should be put to intensive use all year round for this purpose.
The media is another important stakeholder which the ECP should effectively
engage with. Regular media briefings by a senior and articulate ECP official
should be considered especially during the election season. Many media persons,
especially the younger ones, may not be aware of the technicalities of the electoral
system, and it may not be a bad idea for the ECP to arrange training programmes
for them. The use of social media does bring additional challenges but the ECP
should seriously consider whether it can do without it in this day and age.
New technologies are emerging and electoral systems can’t stay aloof. The results
transmission system, or RTS, proved to be a disaster during the last election, and
the ECP should not only push for completing the pending inquiry on the failure, it
should also work from this point on to make the system foolproof before the next
election. Making the voting procedure for overseas Pakistanis trustworthy by using
technology is another challenge before the commission. The jury is still out on the
use of electronic voting machines but the ECP should continue testing prototypes
to decide on their use.

INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNANCE

Governance and institutions are two important components of a state. According to
the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 1997 report, governance is “the
exercise of economic, political and administrative authority, to manage a country’s
affairs at all levels.” Institutions on the other hand provide the environment that
constitutes a system of rules within which policymaking, administration,
innovation, and cooperation occur. For many years, we have been hearing that
Pakistan is losing on account of not having strong institutions, resulting in a
governance pattern, which instead of creating harmony breeds confrontation. Our
persistent outreach to the Monitory Funds (IMF) programme is a prime example of
institutional decay. Plenty of issues concerning mistrust, arbitrary decision-making,
and dysfunctions in institutions have further been exposed since the Financial
Action Task Force’s (FATF) intervention.
Let us begin by understanding what having strong institutions means and how it
impacts governance.
At the start of the present century, the United Nations and multilateral institutions
such as the World Bank started thinking about the ways and means to reduce
poverty in the world through the process of growth and development. Each country
was expected to initiate policies that would raise the standard of living of its
people. An expanded middle class became the benchmark of a country’s progress,
reflected in a high gross domestic product percentage. These milestones were not
easy to reach because countries with a high poverty rate were the ones having
poorly functioning public sector institutions and weak governance. Therefore,
institutional reform was considered the first step on the ladder to development with
subsequent policies to sustain their performance.
In Pakistan, institutional reform has become a cliché. Though every political party,
their leaders, intellectuals, and activists are unanimous that Pakistan’s trajectory to
economic development has been atrophied due to the politicisation of institutions,
no effort has been made to improve the situation. Various diagnostic studies,
particularly those that emerge from the Wilson Center’s frequent conferences on
Pakistan’s development challenges, suggest that “every single crisis faced by the
country — including low tax mobilisation, energy shortages, lack of law and order,
losses of public sector enterprises, poor delivery of education and health services,
and stagnating trade — can be traced back to governance deficits and institutional
weaknesses.”
At present, the political environment is ripe with discussions on the credibility of
NAB; a few days ago it was the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the crosshair;
and before that, we were raising fingers at the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and
Service Corporation Limited under the nose of which wheat worth billions of
rupees was stolen. Similarly, we have written and talked endlessly about the
inefficiency of the police department. An associated issue has been of
confrontation between regulatory bodies and their relevant ministries on the issues
of corruption and maladjustment within their sectors. Each one of them had tried to
shift the burden of their follies on the other. It is a pattern. Whenever a calamity
strikes, instead of owning it and finding a solution, evasion is adopted as the best
option to mar the process of accountability. It so happens because usually hiring in
governmental departments is not done based on merit and most of the public sector
organisations have been used as recruiting agencies to hire people on political
affiliation. In this scenario, institutions work at cross-purposes, a glimpse of which
we saw in the aftermath of the Karachi plane crash report.
While the Ministry of Aviation was thrashing out unlicensed pilots from the PIA
cadre, its regulatory body, the CAA, was handing them an umbrella. What an
embarrassment it was seeing CAA denying having any pilot with a fake licence.
This volley of disagreement left a bad taste in the mouth of the international
market for Pakistan.
The political environment has become so hostile that issues among politicians are
either settled through street agitation or with the intervention of the judiciary. Why
is the judiciary overactive in Pakistan? Not because it is laden with excessive
cases, which is a normal part of its functionality. The real reason lies in the number
of political cases placed at the doors of the judiciary. Our political parties, their
leaders, and the politicians cannot communicate on issues with the ability to reach
a consensus on common grounds. It is this vacuum that has been taken advantage
of by the third force leading to either coups, conspiracies, or unending
controversies undermining the legitimacy of both the government and the
opposition.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) had also been the victim of intra-
departmental and intra-provincial rivalries because of which Pakistan had difficulty
achieving terms and conditions that would have benefited Pakistan. In corollary,
the full benefits of the project that lied in small and medium-size business plans
and the creation of economic zones are still to be derived. To prevent any further
damages the command of the CPEC Authority has been given to an organisation,
purportedly, more organised, and hierarchical.
The challenges that Pakistan faces — such as, population growth, urbanisation,
federal decentralisation, climate change, and water scarcity, among other issues —
demand fundamental reform of the institutions. The first step to a meaningful
institutional reform would be the elimination of the culture of patronage and co-
option. People should strive for success relying not on state bestowed privileges
but on their ability to use opportunities to their advantage through hard work.
The Charter of Democracy could provide the required impetus for the trajectory
from the politics of expediency to national interest. It has all the ingredients to
unite politicians with a common thread of nation building.

POPULATION GROWTH: CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES
Way back in 1798, Thomas Malthus was astonished to see the growing mass of
humanity and warned about its consequence. He said, “The power of population is
so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that
premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”
In a matter of a few years from the writing of these words, the global population hit
one billion, which has now reached almost 7.5 billion.
Though this exponential growth has not created the situation that Malthus has
indicated, it nevertheless has created conditions, such as climate crisis, which has
strained the earth’s capacity to generate resources at the optimal level. According
to recent research led by the University of Washington and published in The
Lancet, the earth’s population will peak at 9.6 billion in 2064.
The contribution of Pakistan to this population bulge will be immense, to say the
least. As per the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics sixth census report, Pakistan’s
population stands at well over 200 million — a 60% rise from the last census that
took place in 1998. This almost unchecked population growth is a governance
issue because of the strain it lays on resources leaving the government with limited
choices to produce quality human beings — a critical area for the development of a
country’s economic base.
At 2.4%, Pakistan’s annual population growth rate is higher than many countries.
Not surprisingly we have surpassed Brazil as the fifth most populous country in the
world.
Though we take pride in the so-called youth bulge that overpopulation has
bestowed upon us, the reality is that this demographic change has led to a rise in
urban migration. Today more than 20% of Pakistanis live in 10 major cities.
The young people unable to find job opportunities in villages and small towns are
forced to move to cities. Had the government planned to create new cities, as is the
practice throughout the developing world, we might have had fewer issues as
regards to employment opportunities, high inflation, and unplanned urbanisation.
According to some reports, urbanisation in Pakistan is growing at an annual rate of
3%, which is the highest growth rate in South Asia. The United Nations Population
Division estimates that “by 2025 nearly half the country’s population will live in
urban areas.” Are we aware of the crisis this will generate?
There is a direct correlation between demography and security. Historically,
population growth has been one of the destabilising factors in the least developed
countries. Young people are usually more susceptible to extreme behaviours. A
study conducted by Population Action International shows that about 80% of the
world’s civil conflicts since the 1970s have occurred in countries with young, fast-
growing populations.
Ideally, we should have used the demographic power to our advantage, but lack of
investment in education and the inability of the state to produce economic
opportunities through the development of manufacturing sector, the youth bulge
has become a liability, which can be a serious threat to the country’s security.
In a turnaround from terrorism, which until a few years back had been bleeding
Pakistan to death, a fight is still raging to reduce extremism, especially in the
matter of religion, where space for diversity is fast shrinking. But it is not just
religious fanaticism that has contributed to making the youth belligerent. Other
factors are equally responsible. According to different estimates, almost 32% of
our young generation is illiterate while a majority of others are school dropouts.
Our enrolment rate is the lowest in South Asia. We spend 2% of GDP on
education, while the quality of education has been questionable since ages now.
Young people leaving colleges are hard put to face the challenges of the globalised
world.
Attention towards this anomaly is also drawn in the State Bank of Pakistan’s third
quarterly report entitled “The State of Pakistan’s Economy — 2019-2020”. The
report reveals: “When it comes to productivity, the poor state of human capital
development is cited as one of the major binding constraints for Pakistan. With
education and training on the lower side, the existing and incoming labour force
does not have the desired level of capacity to effectively participate in economic
activities.”
According to the State Bank estimate, 1.8 million people enter the job market
annually in Pakistan. For their absorption in the workforce, Pakistan needs an
annual economic growth rate of at least 6 to 7%. As of 2018, there were 3.8 million
people unemployed in the country. One is sure that in the aftermath of the
coronavirus-induced economic shutdown this figure must have multiplied — a
scary situation to grapple with. Many a research has identified a direct link
between religious extremism and social and economic marginalisation.
This scenario becomes more worrisome when we see the political leadership
giving patchy attention to the implications of the population explosion and its fall
out. For generations now, almost every government has issued cash-based youth
programmes, but none has prioritised the development of small and medium-sized
businesses — the real backbone of any country’s economic strength.
We can solve this enigma in two ways. First is the traditional method of
introducing family planning interventions with a focus to accelerate women’s
access to contraceptives and to remove societal stigma the right-wing quarters have
attached to the topic of birth control. Second is by introducing human development
interventions such as: providing every child equal opportunity of getting an
education until high school; creating universal health coverage system with a focus
on prevention to mitigate environmental hazards; generating employment
opportunities through business development; and bringing more women into the
workforce. The list goes on. However, these are the bare minimum a country could
do to put its growing population to good use. Interestingly, the adoption of the
second method would automatically take care of the issue of population growth.

CHINESE MODEL OF GOVERNANCE

Though the history of democracy begins in Athens, it finds recognition in the era
of European Enlightenment. It is here that human beings are defined as rational
individuals endowed with inalienable rights. At the heart of any definition of
democracy lies the provision of human rights. The West’s experiment with
democracy has been successful because it gives people the right to adopt
professions and skills of their choice and talent that leads to human development.
With the opening up of the culture of providing opportunities and establishing
meritocracy, development and prosperity reaches new pinnacles. In this context,
would it be correct to say that democracy warrants economic growth? If true,
where do we place China, the second largest economy of the world, after the US?
China does not practise democracy. It rather believes in the forced compliance of
polices it considers vital for development. It also does not leave the business of
choosing political leaders to the masses. So, should we infer that China does not
believe in the notion that individuals are rational and therefore cannot fathom what
is right for their country? Should we also infer that democracy and
authoritarianism are just words, and what matters is good governance that
improves standards of living?
In China, who shall rule the country is decided by the standing committee of
Politburo, the decision-making arm of China’s Communist Party. Political
leadership in China grows from within the party and is marked by years of
governance experience. Leaders are selected against a set of norms that includes
performance measures, opinion polling within the party, and term and age. Though
ordinary Chinese may not have a say to decide who would reign their country, the
culture of consultative process within the party — a departure from the one-man
decision practised by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping — has made China’s
political system more inclusive. As far as democracy per se is concerned, it has no
place in China. President Xi Jinping has been quoted saying, “No one political
system should be regarded as the only choice and we should not just mechanically
copy the political systems of other countries.” The Chinese are, however, clear
about the necessity of having quality leadership to keep the political process from
going awry. China is experiencing the third revolution under Xi; the other two
were brought about by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Xi’s decision to prolong
his presidential stay through an amendment in the Chinese Constitution is part of
the third revolution marked by the Belt and Road Initiative.
This brings us to another question: Does authoritarianism bring prosperity? The
Arab Spring happened because the authoritative rulers of a handful of Middle
Eastern countries had kept the human development indicators so weak that people
in those counties remained poor, underdeveloped, unemployed and bereft of
professional opportunities. Many of these countries went through the experience of
developing or revamping constitutions and holding elections, but no significant
change was achieved. The reason why democracy could not help much is that the
attitude of the leaders towards human rights did not change.
Any nation under any system of governance can progress and rise if it has a
leadership that could make tough decisions. China has been criticised for its
policies considered in violation of human rights, such as the detention of rights
activists and gaging social media sites or limiting people’s access to the Internet.
China does all this with a singular aim of not allowing anyone to disturb the pace
of its development. China is not perturbed when the US or the United Nations raise
fingers against rights issues. When China began hanging people on accusations of
corruption in matters related to public welfare, no amount of international uproar
could restrain it.
We cannot depend on the existing lot of people to choose who should rule us.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of
an educated electoral. Until we have that educated lot, and a leadership that could
carve an indigenous system of governance, let the Chinese model be our saviour.”

EVOLVING POWER (DR NIAZ MURTAZA)

Global lessons show that devolution is crucial for large or ethnically diverse states.
It makes rulers more accountable and reduces conflicts by giving political space to
diverse ethnicities. The value of devolution is clear regionally too. Within Saarc,
only Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives are unitary states without provinces,
but for good reasons. Bhutan and the Maldives are tiny. Bangladesh is area-wise
small and 98 per cent Bengali and 90 per cent Muslim. Among large Saarc states, it
is the only natural nation-state, like Western European ones where most people
belong to one race, faith and ethnicity.
Such states, less hit by internal conflicts, usually progress faster. Bangladesh too is
fast becoming Saarc’s economic star. But given large numbers, it too may adopt
federalism eventually. Despite non-devolution, these three have faced much less
conflict due to small sizes and/or homogeneity and seen some progress too.
Diverse states only do well with devolution. Unlike Bangladesh’s natural
nationhood, the other large Saarc states have cultivated nationhood, ie where
multiple ethnic groups live in a larger state due to perceived mutual benefits. Such
states have to devolve power to the ethnic groups to keep them happy with the
union.
This hasn’t always happened in Saarc. Afghanistan, at war for 40 years, has had no
chance to develop constitutionally. Sri Lanka was a unitary state till 1987, causing
huge grief among its Tamil minority and a long civil war. The war has ended but
not Tamil complaints as it remains centralised with no Senate and largely dummy
provinces. Nepal was a unitary state with three main ethnicities and saw a long
Maoist civil war along class lines. A pact in 2015 on devolution with seven
provinces ended the war and political impasse. But it remains to be seen how well
it is implemented.
That leaves the two Saarc behemoths and arch-rivals. The 1940 Lahore Resolution,
with its reference to autonomy for regions, shows that the Muslim League two-
nation appeal to Muslims was based on the notion of cultivated nationhood with a
promise of devolution.
Muslims had invitations to two nations — the Congress one based on Indian
cultivated nationhood and League’s one based on Pakistani cultivated nationhood.
Congress spoke of a centralised state. The 1940 resolution promised devolution. In
the 1946 polls, Muslims chose the League invitation, reasoning perhaps that with
one of the two major bases of division (religion) gone, the emerging state would be
more cohesive and deal with ethnic divisions by giving them political space via
devolution.
Meanwhile, after Partition, India devolved powers to ethnically formed states. This
along with the lack of sway of any one ethnicity allowed it to blend its ethnic
diversity well into cultivated nationhood. But it failed to integrate religious
minorities across India, leading to much violence. Pakistan mistreated both ethnic
and religious minorities. The latter are too small and dispersed to protest, and
suffer silently. But ethnic minorities chafe loudly about non-devolution and often
face repression by autocratic forces. Thus, Saarc’s lessons show the perils of
centralisation. Diversity sans democracy and devolution leads to destruction and
deaths.
Pakistan took major steps towards devolution during 2008-2018, its best decade
politically and even overall. These included the 18th Amendment; the NFC award;
relative tolerance towards opposition, civil society and media; and peaceful civilian
transition after fair polls in 2013. But most of those gains have been lost since then.
Many say the 2018 polls were rigged by agencies and there is now a crackdown on
media, opposition and civil society by a weak regime controlled by unelected
forces. The 18th Amendment is the last bit of political evolution still surviving.
Undermining it would end our last vestige of democracy.

JUDICIAL POWERS

ARTICLE 184(3) of the Constitution of Pakistan provides a measure of last resort

for citizens of Pakistan to move the highest court of law for the collective
protection of their fundamental rights from an overreaching executive or
legislature. In deviation from standard legal procedure, the Supreme Court can also
exercise this jurisdiction on its own initiative, ie suo motu.
What sets apart suo motu actions from normal judicial cases is that they require no
petition and no aggrieved party. The court can take judicial notice of any matter
and it becomes the prosecutor and the decider of the matter all at the same time.
Suo motu cases by the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Article 184(3) began with
the Darshan Masih case where the apex court took suo motu notice of bonded
labour practices, which took place in Pakistan on the basis of a letter sent to the
court by one of the victims.
Legal researcher Maryam S. Khan in her paper Empowerment without
Accountability? The Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan and its Aftershocks, has
noted how this type of judicial interference in policy and political matters by the
Supreme Court under its suo motu powers has actually led to a weakening of
democratic institutions in Pakistan and stalled any attempt to bring about structural
reforms in the ailing justice system.
Political suo motus can also be problematic because they tend to shift governance
and administrative measures from elected representatives and experts to a bench of
unelected judges who may not have relevant expertise in a particular area.
Most recently, the Supreme Court, while taking suo motu notice of the measures
being taken by the federal and provincial governments to combat the coronavirus
outbreak, decried the efforts of the federal and provincial governments and passed
directions which effectively led to an end of the lockdown. It appears that the
honourable court passed these orders without the assistance of any medical and
public health experts.
These instances of the perceived misuse of the apex court’s powers have left many
wondering whether the suo motu jurisdiction and powers of the Supreme Court
under Article 184(3) have any limits and if they actually cause more harm than
good.
In ‘Secretary vs Meejee Flour and General Mills, Mardan’, the Supreme Court, in a
widely celebrated judgement, held that the exercise of discretionary powers under
public and administrative law required strict structuring so that public power and
discretion are exercised in an impartial and open manner. Therefore, this
jurisdiction and the Supreme Court’s power to administer ‘complete justice’ under
Article 187(1) of the Constitution should not be read as carte blanche which
violates the separation of powers and makes the Supreme Court unaccountable. It
is a public power which needs to be regulated.
The International Commission of Jurists in their 2013 report titled Authority
without Accountability: The Search for Justice in Pakistan has proposed that the
Supreme Court of Pakistan must make rules for the transparent exercise of its suo
motu powers under Article 184(3) specifically providing for transparent criteria
detailing matters the Supreme Court can take suo motu notice of, composition of
the benches made by the chief justice to hear suo motu matters and the procedure
to be adopted by the court in a suo motu hearing.
Sadly, no rules providing guidelines for the exercise of suo motu powers have ever
been made or attempted to be made till date. It has been observed that this may
have made suo motu jurisdiction under Article 184(3) a tool to be used at the whim
of a chief justice, which is antithetical to the very idea of the rule of law.

PRESIDENTIAL CABINET (EXTENDED CABINET)

The Constitution of Pakistan, after the passage of the 18th Amendment, had set a
ceiling on the size of the cabinet to not exceed 11 per cent of the total strength of
parliament which translates into 49. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s cabinet had 29
members including 25 ministers and four ministers of state at the time of this
observation. This number has since increased to 30. Although one can argue on the
merits of a smaller cabinet, the prime minister seems to be well under the
constitutional ceiling.
The size of Imran Khan’s current cabinet — 29 — happens to be exactly equal to
the average of the 50 cabinets Pakistan has seen since 1947. The largest among
these cabinets was led by Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani of the PPP and had 75
ministers and ministers of state in 2008 while the smallest under a democratic
dispensation was that of president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto which had 12 members from
December 1971 to May 1972.
Although the constitutional definition of the cabinet includes ministers and
ministers of state only, advisers and special assistants are traditionally considered
part of the ‘extended’ cabinet. While the ministers and ministers of state are
elected members of one of the two houses of parliament, advisers and special
assistants are generally unelected, and this was what the Supreme Court judges
were referring to.
Currently, the prime minister has five advisers which is the maximum number
allowed in the Constitution. In addition, there are 15 special assistants for which
there is no explicit provision in the Constitution. But it has become increasingly
fashionable to have special assistants to the prime minister since the adoption of
the 18th Amendment. Some feel that special assistants are appointed to circumvent
the ceiling on the number of ministers and advisers, and hence strongly resent this
practice. This practice of appointing special assistants has also been challenged in
the court of law.
The number of special assistants had been varying between three and 13 in the past
but Imran Khan has the distinction of appointing the highest number — 15 — of
special assistants in the history of Pakistan. With this, the total number of
‘extended’ cabinet members has reached the half-century mark with a record 20, or
40pc, of them being unelected.
Although advisers and special assistants cannot formally hold executive powers
available to ministers, almost all of them practically function as ministers and a
majority of them have been declared to hold the status equivalent to either a
minister or minister of state. Advisers can attend the sittings of the two houses of
parliament and make statements there on behalf of the government but this facility
is not available to special assistants.
Now we, in fact, have two parts of the cabinet of almost equal size; one consisting
of 29 elected members of parliament and holding about 10 substantive portfolios
such as foreign affairs, communication, power, interior etc along with some
relatively less substantive portfolios. The other part of the cabinet consists of 20
unelected experts, professionals or some loyal political comrades who could not
win the last election but needed to be accommodated. This part of the cabinet also
carries about 10 substantive portfolios such as finance, commerce, health,
parliamentary affairs, etc.  
This state of the cabinet raises some key questions such as why prime ministers in
general and Imran Khan in particular have inducted such a large number of
unelected members into the ‘extended’ cabinet. Is our kind of democracy unable to
elect persons of such calibre to parliament as required to lead the ministries,
especially such heavyweight ministries as finance, commerce, parliamentary
affairs, health, social protection, establishment, overseas Pakistanis and
institutional reforms? This leads one to ask whether we are moving towards a
hybrid model including the ingredients of a presidential cabinet in which the chief
executive picks a cabinet from outside the legislature.
Whatever the reason, the current extra-constitutional practice of relying on a large
number of unelected professionals for cabinet-level positions in the guise of special
assistants needs to be reviewed because it runs counter to the ethos of a
parliamentary system of government. It not only creates heartburn among the
elected members of parliament who feel passed over by the unelected lot, it also
raises questions about the double standards of transparency and accountability such
as declaration of assets and liabilities which is legally binding on elected members
but not on unelected ones. Moreover, special assistants, despite holding portfolios,
are not answerable to parliament.

FLOOD MANAGEMENT

The frequency and intensity of hazards that develop into disasters has drastically
increased over the years. This is the result of a rapidly growing population,
urbanisation, climate change and poverty.
In 2010, floods ravaged the valleys of Swat and Nowshera causing death and
destruction and resulting in 1,156 casualties in KP alone. As the flood wave slowed
in the Indus floodplains of Punjab and Sindh, numerous breaches occurred as
embankments succumbed to the might of the waters. A breach at Tori inundated
thousands of villages, leaving 411 people dead and 7.2 million badly affected. In
all, the 2010 floods cost the country an estimated $10 billion in direct losses.
Subsequent years (2011-15) provided little reprieve and further exposed the
vulnerability of communities and the economy to flooding events. Heavy rains
battered the plains of Sindh in 2011, killing hundreds and rendering millions
homeless. The year 2014 brought heavy downpours across Kashmir and Punjab.
The untamed Chenab inundated thousands of villages in Punjab, killing hundreds.
The direct economic losses of the floods since 2010 are more than $19bn,
outweighing the combined losses of all past floods since 1947.
Pakistan’s flood management policy has centred on structural interventions to
mitigate floods through construction of embankments, and river training structures.
Non-structural interventions have made rudimentary progress in early warning
systems, which have been riddled with integration, adoption and forecast reliability
issues.
The Federal Flood Commission was established to coordinate flood management at
a national level. It provides technical and financial support to the provincial
irrigation departments. Meanwhile, the NDMA and PDMAs, mandated to “manage
the whole Disaster Management Cycle”, have relegated themselves only to the
response and relief phase in the case of floods. The disaster management
authorities, along with Rescue 1122, the armed forces and district administration
provide search and rescue, evacuations and relief. It is no wonder that flood
management, which requires clear decision-making on mitigation, preparedness,
early warning, communication and response, finds itself lost between different
organisations of the centre and provinces.
It is now, during the pandemic, that this ‘annual surprise’ presents its deadliest
twist. In case flooding is of an intensity that requires large-scale evacuations from
villages, thousands of vulnerable people including the elderly, will be forced to
live in closely packed relief shelters.
Relief shelters and camps, usually set up in nearby schools, would need to be
expanded to ensure social distancing. Sanitation and hygiene facilities, including
provision of masks, soaps and hand sanitisers at such camps would have to be
ensured to prevent infection transmission. Similarly, the provision of medical
facilities, healthcare supplies for the displaced, and PPE for the camp management
would need to be ensured.
Globally, authorities are rethinking disaster evacuation and shelter plans in the face
of simultaneous disasters in their respective regions. There are many lessons to
learn from Asian countries. During the recent torrential rains and floods in the
south-western Kumamoto prefecture in Japan, elderly citizens have shown
reluctance in evacuating due to fears of Covid-19 exposure, preferring instead to
shelter at home. The authorities prepared cardboard separation walls at evacuation
shelters to maintain social distancing, and prevent the unmitigated spread of the
coronavirus at temporary shelters.
In another example closer to home, Bangladesh authorities expanded the capacity
of their shelters before Super Cyclone Amphan made landfall in May. The
authorities scrambled to manufacture and distribute masks and hand sanitisers to
the millions of evacuees, volunteers and officials. The management of Cyclone
Amphan in Bangladesh has largely been hailed as a success, based on the low
death toll during the super cyclone event.

OPEN GOVERNANCE
BACK in 2016, the PML-N government expressed its willingness to sign the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Anti-Bribery
Convention to fortify Pakistan’s efforts to combat corruption. But when OECD
invited Pakistan to accede to the convention, the government began to dither. Four
years have passed, and Pakistan is yet to demonstrate any effort towards signing it.
Now that the PTI is in power, the government may reconsider ratifying the OECD
convention.
A transparent and accountable governing structure in Pakistan requires
international cooperation. The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and the UN
Convention Against Corruption are legally binding multilateral instruments that
facilitate state parties in their fight against corruption by improving international
cooperation and assistance. Pakistan is not a signatory to the OECD convention but
has signed and ratified the UNCAC.
The OECD convention is the first global initiative agreed between 34 nations to
target the ‘supply-side’ of bribery, ie the person or entity who offers, promises or
gives a bribe. Today, 44 countries have ratified it to prohibit foreign bribery on an
extraterritorial basis. By contrast, the UNCAC provides the most extensive
coverage of all international anti-corruption instruments. The OECD convention
and UNCAC are mutually supportive and complementary; hence accomplishing
effective international cooperation requires the ratification and implementation of
both.
Although the UNCAC is a political tool used for dialogue between countries and
between governments and citizens, it is prone to certain weaknesses and
challenges. UNCAC ratification does not constitute political will in itself. Most
state parties ratify it to use it as a ‘fig leaf’ to deflect criticism from donors or
political opponents. The UNCAC is no blueprint for anti-corruption reform; it is a
compilation of key measures that lack prioritisation or sequencing. The review
process under it is voluntary, with no formal follow-up process on the findings and
recommendations made under the implementation review cycles. In addition, the
UNCAC publishes only the executive summary of the report at the end of the
review process. The full country review report remains confidential unless allowed
by the reviewed country. The mechanisms of the UNCAC are also unsatisfactory
and call for reforms to address country-specific forms of corruption designed to fit
into the country’s institutional arrangements and procedures.
To this end, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention has proven to be more efficient
and effective in the implementation of a robust anti-corruption system for a
country. Unlike the UNCAC, the convention is a complete guide; the OECD
Working Group on Bribery monitors its implementation and enforcement in
several phases through a rigorous peer-review monitoring system, tailored to
country-specific needs. Transparency International (TI) has repeatedly recognised
this rigorous peer-review monitoring system as a ‘gold standard’. In addition, this
monitoring process is compulsory, requiring the highest level of compliance
without providing any right to veto the final report and recommendations, which
are mandatorily made ‘public’ after every review.
There is another reason that merits attention. The notion behind the OECD
convention is to induce signatories to reduce their investment in corrupt countries,
and the empirical analysis has proved the same. Several countries, including the
US, UK, and numerous states in Europe that are Pakistan’s top trading partners,
have ratified the OECD convention. Their ratification, however, is correlated to
reduced investment in Pakistan. According to TI’s 2018 report, the lack of robust
anti-corruption mechanisms has resulted in the loss of trade and business
opportunities in Pakistan. To stabilise the economy in the era of globalisation
requires increased trade at reduced costs with the developed world, which
necessitates Pakistan to ratify the OECD convention. Pakistan, by signing and
ratifying the convention will send a clear message that its companies will invest
ethically and not engage in corrupt activities. Resultantly, it will ensure a more
stable and attractive investment climate for foreign investors.
The OECD convention is contingent upon four main conditions: (i) fiscal
transparency; (ii) access to government data; (iii) public officials’ asset disclosure;
and (iv) citizens’ engagement in policymaking and governance. These conditions
are challenging and demanding but acceding to the convention will provide the
government with an international framework for exchanging information with
other states on the monies obtained illegally and laundered by Pakistani nationals.
The rigorous monitoring process under the OECD convention will also compel the
government to create a transparent and accountable governing structure in
Pakistan.
A QUESTION OF GOVERNANCE (M. LODHI)
WHILE the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the world, the faltering
response of many governments has sparked a lively global debate about why some
countries have effectively managed the crisis while others haven’t.
This has focused renewed attention on fundamental issues of governance. While
the jury is still out on how countries have fared, there is considerable evidence now
of what it takes to manage competently. Countries with leaders who governed well
before the crisis, and were decisive, inclusive and listened to their experts after the
outbreak, did much better to contain the virus than whimsical leaders who made
policy a hostage to their ego.
The question has also been raised of whether democracies or authoritarian states
have managed the crisis better. Illiberal democracies have been identified as
among those who have mishandled the response. Gender as a factor in leadership
has also been considered with analysts pointing out that many women leaders have
outperformed several of their male counterparts. The examples cited are of New
Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
More important than the type of political system or gender is the quality of
governance that preceded the pandemic and was tested, as was the leadership,
when Covid-19 struck. Able management has been possible under different
political systems. But democracies with poor leadership have had no edge over
other political systems.
Examples abound. Perhaps the US provides the most compelling illustration of
how a country under an erratic leader governing divisively and capriciously made
such a mess of its pandemic response. There is consensus among Western opinion
makers that President Trump’s inept handling has exacerbated America’s health
crisis. Writing in the Financial Times, Martin Wolf argued that the “President and
administration neither want to govern nor know how to do so”. Trump became the
“embodiment of fierce internal divisions” that played a destructive role during the
crisis. David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker that Trump’s stumbling response
was no surprise given that even before, his administration was “more interested in
setting fires than in investing in fire prevention or containment” — dismantling the
“administrative state”, abandoning international agreements and cutting spending
on science, health and emergency preparedness. Moreover “expertise offended
Trump”.
Other leaders who governed by whim not wisdom or consultation also fumbled
badly in the pandemic. These cases confirm a basic fact — that ruling and
governing are fundamentally different. Securing the country’s top political office is
one thing, but knowing what to do and acting in the public interest quite another.
So, what distinguishes governance from simply ruling a country? What makes for
good governance? There are several, often interrelated principles which are
generally accepted as contributing to effective governance. Of these four are
noteworthy.
The first is having a national vision and a clear road map to govern in the public
interest. This entails crafting a national — not polarising — narrative to inspire
confidence and elicit public support. Its antithesis is a reactive approach, which lets
events drive policy and responds only after a crisis has erupted.
A second principle is inclusive governance, which brings people together and
unites the nation behind a chosen policy course. This involves governing by
consensus and reaching out to political opponents to build trust — the key to
securing compliance from citizens and political actors. It also means shunning
partisan politics to achieve national goals.
The third principle is an institutional, not personalised, approach to decision-
making and ensuring that any impulsive instincts of a leader are kept in check by
laid down processes. Structured governance is predictable and orderly, which by
following established procedures enables advice to be systemically received and
factored into decision making.
Good governance is, above all, competent government. The fourth principle to
achieve this is to seek sound solutions to problems, not bemoan the past and the
legacy of challenges a government has inherited. This means a focus on problem
solving for the future, not living in the past. It involves valuing expertise in
decision-making and listening to others.
How does Pakistan’s current leadership size up against these principles?
As much has already been said about its haphazard response to Covid-19, it is
instructive to evaluate its general approach to governance that preceded the
pandemic and was subsequently reinforced. From the outset the federal leadership
rejected an inclusive approach, preferring to rule unilaterally in excessive partisan
fashion, dubbing all non-supporters as unworthy of engagement. This meant losing
an opportunity in the ongoing health crisis to unify the country and forge a national
strategy by political consent. The government still prefers to only represent its own
party supporters rather than the entire country.
Its polarising conduct is demonstrated by its ministers and spokesmen picking
daily fights with opponents and so-called mafias. This not only distracts attention
from ongoing challenges but also sets up a divisive form of governance. These
distractions have meant that as problems have emerged — ranging from shortages
of flour, petrol and energy — the government has been behind rather than ahead of
the curve in tackling them.
The most stunning example of its missteps has been the irresponsible handling of
the PIA pilots affair. Addressing the licence issue did not have to involve
destroying the national carrier’s credibility and tarnishing the country’s reputation.
The government’s penchant to constantly blame others for every problem has
actually hobbled its problem-solving efforts. Ceaseless references to the conduct of
previous governments has mired ruling party leaders in battling the past rather than
fixing their minds on the future.
The cult of personality that characterises the government has contributed to the
lack of institutional governance while the leader’s dominance has encouraged
group think and denuded his government from receiving alternate, expert policy
advice. Personalised governance devalues processes through which expert advice
is relayed. Despite the bevy of advisers appointed by the prime minister the
paradox is how little premium is put on their advice.
In view of this it is not surprising that the image that persists of the government is
that it is an amateurish team that endlessly congratulates itself for its competence
but has a great deal of ground to cover before the public sees it the same way.

PARLIAMENTARY PERFORMANCE
THE 15th National Assembly completed two years on Aug 17. Its
performance during this period has been the subject of discussion in the past
few days.
The most promising aspect of the performance during the second year has been the
relative improvement in the pace of legislation as the National Assembly passed 30
bills during the year compared to just 10 in the first year. The number of both
government and private members’ bills introduced during the year also registered a
significant increase. Historically, the legislative performance of a National
Assembly during its first year is rather slow because the government takes time to
draw up its legislative agenda, and the formation of standing committees, which
play a key role in legislation, is also generally delayed.
The rather weak performance during the first year is, therefore, not unusual, and
any optimism about the improvement during the second year against the weak
benchmark of the first would be a little misplaced. In any case, whatever
improvement is registered in legislation by the National Assembly has been more
than countered by the almost 350 per cent increase in presidential ordinances —
legislation by decree.
The most telling feature of the legislative performance of the Assembly is that the
number of ordinances (31) promulgated exceed the number of bills passed in the
Assembly during the year. The ruling coalition can’t defend this performance for
not having the majority in the Senate because we are comparing just the bills
passed by the National Assembly where the PTI and its allies have a majority.
There are certain reasons why our legislators don’t perform the way their
counterparts abroad do.
Another positive aspect of the Assembly performance pertained to the 15pc higher
number of hours put in during the sessions in the second year compared to the first.
The Assembly, which at one time appeared to be struggling to meet the
constitutionally required minimum target of 130 working days, was ultimately able
to slightly exceed the target by working for 140 days.
Then presumptive prime minister Imran Khan had received almost universal
admiration when he announced his intention a few days before taking oath to
regularly attend parliamentary sittings and personally answer questions in line with
the British parliamentary tradition. Sadly, two years down the road, this promise
remains unfulfilled though this is something that he could have easily managed
given his excellent communication skills.
The performance statistics tell only a part of the story. Parliamentary performance,
in general, has been declining even beyond these numbers. There are some
fundamental reasons for parliament not performing the way its counterparts do in
developed democracies.
The first and fundamental reason is the huge divergence in the way the vast
majority of ordinary people and textbooks define the performance of parliament
and parliamentarians. Ordinary folk expect their elected representatives to
intercede on their behalf with the administration and solve their personal issues
like jobs, transfer from one job to another or one place to the other, police cases —
all those things which should get routinely done in a well-governed society without
any intervention.
Our elected representatives are not sitting idle in their farmhouses; they are
working overtime, moving from one office to the other, or calling the decision-
makers trying to get things done for their voters and supporters. They spend a huge
amount of time attending weddings and funerals in their constituencies. These two
functions taken together consume somewhere between 60pc and 70pc of their time
and mainly it is this time which, if productively employed, determines their re-
election prospects. The reality is that these are the most important key performance
indicators for our parliamentarians.
Absence or ineffectiveness of the elected local governments further exacerbates the
pressure on legislators, because local development and civic issues like sanitation
and water supply also land in their lap. Till the time our governance improves and
we have functional and effective local governments, it is hard to expect our
legislatures to focus on classic parliamentary duties such as legislation and
oversight.
A further extension of the prevailing culture explained here is that legislators have
hardly any incentive to devote time to such intellectual, analytical and time-
consuming functions as an in-depth study of legislation, scrutiny of the
government’s budgetary proposals and engaging in policy debates. The result is
that not only the quantity but the quality of legislation too suffers. Recently, when
a bill was unanimously passed by the Punjab Assembly and media and public
criticism almost instantly ensued, many members publicly admitted they had not
even read the text of the bill, let alone analysed it or held consultations on it within
their parties. The 18th Amendment, which had impacted one-third of the
Constitution, was debated for just two days in the National Assembly and four
days in the Senate.
Another key factor that is undermining parliamentary performance is the
exceedingly polarised politics within the country, which is reflected with enhanced
intensity in parliamentary conduct. In a normal democracy, the ruling and
opposition parties do have serious differences and intellectual clashes, but hardly
do they refuse to engage with each other on policy issues including critical
legislation.
We wasted one full year without a complete Election Commission, and the prime
minister refused to meet and consult the leader of the opposition on the
appointments as required by the Constitution. Recently, the prime minister publicly
expressed displeasure and disappointment on the way his chief minister of the
largest province was summoned before NAB — but his party is not ready to
seriously engage and agree on amending the National Accountability Ordinance
because it might hurt their politics. Why should only our security establishment or
an external agency make it possible for the government and opposition to agree on
legislation?
These are serious issues which impact the performance of our elected houses in a
profound way. Even more serious is the absence of any thoughtful dialogue to
address these and similar grave issues.

AGRICULTURE (LAND REFORMS)

According to the latest Economic Survey, agriculture recorded a growth rate of 3.2
per cent during the last fiscal year but for several previous years the farming sector
of agriculture had been showing little or negative growth. Its overall performance
rose due to the livestock sector’s performance.
In 2018, government launched a Rs277 billion Prime Minister’s Agriculture
Emergency programme. The 10-point programme ranges from enhancement of
productivity of wheat, rice, sugarcane and oilseeds and water conservation to
backyard poultry farms. We are almost in the middle of the five-year programme
and it should be worthwhile to find out how many of the objectives have been
achieved and how much of the programme will survive post-pandemic planning.
Earlier too, agriculture development packages including credit, price support and
marketing facilities, were offered. While these measures did have a positive impact
on the economy they did not touch the iniquitous land ownership pattern that is a
major cause of the sluggish performance of agriculture.
Agriculture is important on three counts. First, it offers the means of guaranteeing
food security. Secondly, it remains a significant contributor to the GDP. And
thirdly, it accounts for a little over 33pc of the national labour force. A holistic
approach to agricultural development will concentrate as much, if not more, on the
well-being of the cultivators as on the promotion of state interest. It is essential to
look at the hardship of petty landholders.
According to the latest agriculture census, farms less than an acre constitute 19pc
of the total number of farms but the area covered is 1pc of the total; farms under
five acres constitute 64pc of the total but the area under their command is only
19pc of the total farm area. On the other hand, farms of 25 acres to over 150 acres
constitute only 5pc of the total number of farms but they constitute 35pc of the
total area. There have been suggestions that land in the possession of bigger
landlords has increased since the last land reform of more than 40 years ago.
The life of owners of tiny pieces of land is unmitigated misery. They cannot afford
the essential inputs, nor can they use the machines. They have little access to
credit. They are too poor to make any progress in social life and their use of
educational facilities is limited.