Succession planning

There needs to be a set of protocols that define how governance is to continue prime minister falls ill

The primary source of information about the recovery of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is his daughter Maryam Nawaz, and she is far from voluble, limiting herself mostly to anodyne statements on Twitter and the brief comments on private TV channels. This is all very well, the family is entitled to their privacy in medical matters, but when the health of the prime minister is the issue then the nation needs to be a little better informed than has hitherto been the case. Information has been given very slowly, and there is no published location of the hospital that the prime minister is being treated in, but some idea of the severity of his cardiac problem is now in the public domain. The prime minister has had major surgery and parts of four arteries in his heart replaced by healthy artery parts grafted from elsewhere in his body. This is almost a routine procedure but not without risk, and requires careful post-operative management.

Of particular concern is that the prime minister and his family were aware of the severity of his condition, despite which he continued a heavy schedule of public engagements. Whilst his fortitude may be admirable, this is not the best way to look after oneself, and treatment was timely to say the least. What the incident has thrown into sharp relief is the urgent need for the development of a process of succession planning, and for that process to be in the public domain. As history tells us prime ministers fall ill or die whilst in harness and there needs to be a set of protocols that define how governance is to continue in that eventuality. It would be fair to say there is currently some confusion around this, which is doing nothing for the internal unity of the ruling party or the country itself in broader terms. Adhoc and informal arrangements involving arms-length consultation over electronic media are not sufficient unto the day, and in the event of the prime minister suffering a relapse, inoperable anyway. We wish the prime minister a complete and speedy recovery, and some equally speedy succession planning.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2016.

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