Finally, a referendum

WITH the formal announcement of a referendum in about a month’s time, President Pervez Musharraf becomes Pakistan’s third strongman to seek legitimacy through a controversial referendum. If he wins — and if the past is any indication he is going to win by a big margin — President Musharraf will remain the head of state for another five years. This is in clear violation of the Constitution. The Constitution, no doubt, does lay down a procedure for referring an issue to the people (Article 48-6). But the process for electing the president has been clearly laid down in Article 41 (clauses 3a and 3b) which says the president must be elected by an electoral college consisting of the members of the federal parliament and the four provincial assemblies. Besides, a person already holding an office of profit in the government of Pakistan cannot contest a presidential election (Art. 43-1). However, the proposed referendum next month will elect as head of state a person who is a serving general.

Most, though not all, political parties have criticized the president’s speech and rejected the referendum. Mainstream political parties — the PPP and the PML-N — have reacted most strongly, especially because of the president’s resolve to keep Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif out of politics. This means that, while the political parties will take their anti-referendum message to the people, the campaign for the president will be undertaken by the official machinery. By tradition, our voters are motivated into going to the polling stations by the political parties. For the fraud of a referendum organized by Ziaul Haq, voters were taken to polling stations by religious parties which had supported his dictatorship from day one. This time, there will be no mainstream political party urging the people to vote.

This means that either the turn-out will be low, or the official machinery will be used to mobilize voters and take them to the polling stations.

For all one knows, the president may get a “Yes” vote, because there is no doubt that he enjoys wide popularity among large sections of the population. Many of his policies — especially those relating to 9/11 and the crackdown on religious militancy — have been welcomed by the people. But the issue here is not popularity but giving the country political stability and protecting the economic and political reforms by constitutional means.

Here again, if this speech and the president’s past pronouncements are any indication, his government intends to amend the Constitution to ensure some checks and balances in the basic law. Undeniably, the 1973 Constitution in its original form gave sweeping powers to the prime minister. Ziaul Haq, keen to perpetuate his own rule, disfigured the Constitution by arbitrary amendments and made the president all powerful. He also introduced the vicious 58-2(b) clause that invested him with powers to dismiss an elected national assembly as well as the prime minister. The clause contributed enormously to instability and constitutional chaos, and turned the dismissal of an elected prime minister into a trivial matter. The result was that not a single prime minister was able to complete his or his term. The clause was later abolished by the Nawaz Sharif government. One does not know in what form this clause is to be resurrected. But again the danger is that this amendment, together with the National Security Council, could swing the pendulum in the other direction, making the president more powerful than needed and jeopardizing the Constitution’s parliamentary character.

The National Security Council itself is a controversial concept, for Turkey’s example shows that it has made no contribution to its political stability; instead, it has militated against the consolidation of democratic institutions. If made part of the Constitution through an amendment, the NSC will make an elected prime minister subservient to a non-elected body. Besides, the