May 16, 2006	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1427

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LAHORE, March 15: The 36-point Charter of Democracy (CoD) signed by former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif in London on Sunday contains some provisions from the drafts of the two parties and some changes and additions negotiated by the two sides.

In the charter, the PPP and the PML-N have expressed their resolve to bring about fundamental changes in the system.

The implementation of the charter, however, will pose some difficult problems. A number of amendments will have to be incorporated into the Constitution, which will be possible only if the signatories have a two thirds majority in parliament.

And since a number of points in the charter may not be of the liking of the establishment, the two parties and any other party deciding to sign it, will have to wage a tough struggle to honour their commitments.

The Charter commits the two parties to disband the National Security Council, set up a commission to examine and report its findings on military coups and removal of civil governments since 1996.

Similarly, a commission shall examine and identify the causes, and fix responsibility of incidents like Kargil, and make recommendations. The NSC can be dissolved by a simple act of parliament, but will any government be ever in a position to initiate such a step?

The formation of a commission on Kargil will be another uphill task for a political government because it will be taken as a more directed against President Pervez Musharraf.

Whereas the army is a united institution, political parties are neither united nor in a position, at least at present, to take on the might of the army.

(MMA Secretary-General Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Monday statement that his alliance will take part in the elections, irrespective of who is in power, should be an eye-opener for those politicians who have been saying that they may boycott polls held under Gen Musharraf. Maulana Fazl’s statement that a decision about launching a movement against Gen Musharraf in September, as announced by Qazi Husain Ahmed, would be taken keeping in view the ground realities, is another example of lack of coordination among political leaders).

Will the politicians be able to draw necessary conclusions from the example set by former army chief Gen Jehangir Karamat?

During his second tenure when Mr Sharif was engaged in a serious conflict with the then president Farooq Leghari and Chief Justice Syed Sajjad Ali Shah, the role of the army chief had become very crucial. Gen Karamat did not provide security sought by Justice Shah, who was then hearing a case against Mr Sharif. His ‘tilt’ in favour of Mr Sharif ‘saved democracy’, but paved the way for the ouster of the president and the chief justice. But the same Gen Karamat became Gen Musharraf’s ambassador to the United States, despite the fact that the latter had overthrown a government he had helped to save.

The Sharif-Benazir determination to link the fate of the local bodies with the assemblies is difficult to understand. The charter says that the LB polls will be held within three months of the general elections. This means that while the term of the LBs will be extended by a year, these institutions will cease to exist if the assemblies are dissolved. Suppose a prime minister advises the dissolution of the assemblies using his constitutional right, he will, by implication, be recommending the packing of the LBs as well.

The charter does say that the power to appoint the services chiefs should go back to the prime minister, but it is silent on whether the PM should also have the authority to sack them.

Leaders who have drafted and approved the charter seem to have overlooked one possible scenario — that of Gen Musharraf becoming the prime minister, and he has kept that option open. Ruling party sources say that in case President Musharraf has to take off his uniform for any reason, he will like to get elected as prime minister instead of retaining the presidency.

Will the opposition parties be wiling to give so many powers to “Prime Minister Musharraf” as they have proposed for the chief executive in the charter.

The way the charter proposes to deal with the army lays the foundation of a perpetual conflict between the army and the civilian leadership.

It also means that as long as Gen Musharraf is on the scene, he will ensure that neither the PPP nor the PML-N gets a chance to come to power. In fact, he will want the exiled leaders to stay out of the country for as long as possible.

Many of the remaining points of the charter will be widely Welcome, provided the two parties get a chance to implement them.

Interestingly, the charter has been signed by leaders of the two major parties in the ARD. Now a meeting of the ARD will be held in London a few weeks later. Will the smaller parties in the alliance be in a position to propose any amendment to what has been decided by the two former prime ministers? If not, what purpose will the proposed meeting serve?