| October 22, 2002 | Tuesday | Sha’aban 15,1423 |
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Freedom of choice
Firecracker hazards
TWELVE days have passed since the election but the National Assembly has not met yet. There was a sense of relief when President Pervez Musharraf announced that he would cease to be the chief executive on November 1. However, going by the hiatus in the process of power transfer, one fails to see how the government can meet the November 1 deadline. It is true that because of the split electoral verdict, government formation is taking time. The leading parties have not yet been able to agree on a credible coalition formula. Some have yet to make up their minds as to whether they will sit in the opposition or try to be part of the government. But that should not stop the government from ensuring that the electoral process goes forward, constitutionally and logically. For one thing, why have not elections been held so far to the reserved seats in the lower house? Is the government waiting for all the independents to show their hand? Surely, the three leading parties could continue their talks on forming a coalition government while the assembly completes the business of holding election to the reserved seats. In any case, the coming into being of the full National Assembly — with 342 seats — will not affect the parties’ relative strength in the House. No doubt, each party will have more members, but only proportionately, leaving the complexion of the National Assembly unaltered. Such an assembly could, for instance, elect the speaker and the deputy speaker and then wait for the parties to arrive at a coalition arrangement.
The latest development that is bound to raise concern is Federal Law Minister Dr Khalid Ranjha’s statement that the absence of a senate is creating some constitutional problems in regard to the election of the prime minister. Actually, it is the other way round, for it is the national and provincial assemblies which elect the senate. The senate has not come into being because the five assemblies — the NA and the four PAs — have not yet been called into session. If they had been summoned immediately after the election results were announced, an upper house would have been in place by now. In any case, the minister is wrong on this score, for it is the lower house that elects its leader, and the upper house has nothing to do with the process of his election.
The delay in summoning the newly-elected legislatures, therefore, needs to be fully explained. There are allegations that the generals have delayed assembly sessions because the “king’s party” has not yet been able to muster enough support to form a coalition government. Another theory is that the military has not yet come to an understanding with possible candidates for the prime ministerial slot on the future relationship between the army and the elected government. Whatever the truth, the government should note the Supreme Court’s decision of May 12, 2000, requiring the military government to hold elections to the national and provincial assemblies and to the senate “not later than 90 days before the expiry of the aforesaid period” (the three-year period beginning with October 12, 1999.) While elections to the national and provincial assemblies were indeed held within the stipulated period, the government has to answer for not holding elections to the senate within the stipulated time. Any further delay will only complicate the political situation
ONE of the apprehensions voiced in the immediate aftermath of the general election was that while the MMA would not be able to do much about the anti-terror or Afghan policy, which will remain firmly in the domain of the military authorities, it might seek to restrict the domestic space for cultural and social expression. In this connection, the alliance held a women’s convention in Peshawar last weekend that was addressed by Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad. The convention was meant to dispel the impression that the MMA would impose a Taliban-style dispensation on women. The JI leader promised equal job opportunities for women, said laws that discriminated against women would be repealed, and promised that practices such as honour killings would be abolished. Other MMA representatives have also been seeking to distance themselves from the more obscurantist views traditionally espoused by the religious parties. But the signals remain mixed, and there is little reason to be convinced that all of the MMA’s components have given up their fixation with totally irrelevant matters at the cost of issues of fundamental importance to the nation.
For instance, a statement attributed to one of the MMA leaders says that its government will ban cable television because it is the main channel of dissemination of “vulgarity” in society; the leader did not talk of cable’s role in spreading information and knowledge. Qazi Hussain Ahmad himself told the Peshawar convention that the MMA would ban co-education and establish separate educational institutions for women. The country, because of its defence and debt liabilities, already has very little to spend on education, and the effort should be to make maximum use of the limited money available. If there is a certain amount of money for education, should it be spent on setting up segregated educational institutions or on educational institutions where everyone, irrespective of sex, can study? Abolition of co-education did not figure in the MMA’s manifesto, and there is no reason why this antediluvian proposal should be resurrected at this stage. The object of any government, whether of the MMA or any other party or grouping, should be to maximize education, and indeed whichever government promises to make education its top priority will deserve wholehearted support. We have got to live with the MMA; democracy’s verdict has to be respected. But the MMA will also have to learn to live with a society that, despite all the beating it has received, is open, dynamic, willing to assimilate new ideas and developments, and ready to move ahead. It will challenge any impositions that circumscribe the free expression of views or the freedom of choice.
IT IS disturbing to see firecrackers and other kinds of such low-intensity explosive material being sold freely in the markets of the twin cities for Shab-i-Barat, despite the known dangers. Many unsuspecting children have been injured, some maimed for life, in accidents involving the use of firecrackers. Not only do children put themselves at risk while playing with firecrackers, they also endanger others. The manufacture of fireworks is itself a hazardous undertaking. An explosion in a Rawalpindi factory in 1978 killed 65 people; a similar incident in the same city a few years later took a toll of 14 lives. Yet there has been no official clampdown on the manufacture, sale and purchase of this explosive material, which is readily available in general stores and small shops.
Regulations prohibiting the sale and manufacture of firecrackers do exist. The problem here, as with many other issues, lies in implementation. It is the responsibility of the district and local governments in the twin cities to send inspectors around the cities to ensure that fireworks manufacturing factories are closed down and all firecrackers confiscated from shops found selling them. Schools and the electronic media can also be used to educate children and their parents about these dangerous playthings.