EDITORIAL: The Central Government’s dec­ision to extend the Governor’s rule in Balu­c­histan for a further period of 30 days amounts to an admission that the efforts to secure the support or acquiescence of a sufficient number of legislators for installing a new Ministry in office have proved fruitless. … The institution of responsible government in Baluchistan was one of the demands which the Muslim League inscribed on its banner before the dawn of independence. It is an irony that the people of Baluchistan remained condemned to the whims and excesses of arbitrary government managed by bureaucrats for about 24 years after the advent of freedom. …

The removal of a government that ruled by democratic right is capable of sowing the seeds of … alienation in Baluchistan. The remedy does not lie in seeking to seduce the legislators from their loyalties and contriving an alternative majority that cannot come into existence without resorting to methods that are contrary to … democratic behaviour. It lies in the Governor asking a person who he thinks is likely to command a majority’s support to form a Ministry and in summoning the Assembly immediately to test the credentials of such a Ministry.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2023