14 May day: interests and constitution
The writer is a senior political economist
Strange are the ways of power politics. All power players in the unfortunate land of ours are swearing by the constitution. The most powerful institution, with a legacy of declaring it a mere piece of paper and recently a master of hybridisation, is for the first time insisting on its laid-down role of security. Elections have to wait because it is too busy with its main job. Its traditional second in command, the judiciary, rejects the case presented by its civilian face, Ministry of Defence. After all, judiciary is reclaiming its exclusive right to protect and interpret the constitution. For Punjab, ninety days are ninety days. 14 May is 14 May. Period. Divisions within, some say, prevent the two to tango. Umpteen cases and 63-A rewrite suggest it’s with PTI now. Last year, a coalition replaced the PTI government through a constitutional VONC. In turn, the PTI adopted the constitutional path of dissolving two provincial assemblies.
All are hiding behind the constitution for narrow political ends. Institutions have jealously guarded their hegemony over national interest. Academic research shows that the principal objective of political parties is to return to or retain power. The VONC was moved only when the establishment ditched own creation for failing to ensure its slice of the economic cake. In the aid of military and civil power came judiciary to burn the midnight oil. It is an open secret that the VONC had two aims: prevent IK from putting all his opponents behind the bars in the name of corruption and to legislate a way out of the cases. It was also meant to contain IK’s long term presidential-authoritarian ambitions. But the end of his courtship with the establishment took care of that. Billing the change as siasat nahi riasat was mere eyewash. Riasat was facing an existential economic crisis. Instead of pursuing the unpopular agenda of reform and restructuring, the PTI government turned to populist measures that derailed the programme agreed with the IMF. There was an initial attempt by the coalition government to restore the process of taking long-neglected harsh measures. However, the midstream change of guard rendered the state of economic affairs worse than before. Family siasat left the riasat behind. Indeed, the riasat and their own siasat would have been served best, had they followed inside advice to hold elections after VONC.
Failure of the coalition to hold early elections provided the PTI an opportunity to resuscitate popular support. Provincial assemblies were dissolved to force general elections. The idea was to bring back IK to the PM House, not the Chaudhry to the CM House. His return journey has been facilitated by the judiciary, again in the name of constitution. By not taking the request of Ministry of Defence to hold all elections on October 8 seriously, it has signalled distancing from the establishment. Acting as a panchayat, it has ordered all political parties to agree on a date for all elections before October. Else, the Punjab elections hang over their head like the sword of Damocles. IK, the nonpolitician in JUI chief’s reckoning, has proved to be the shrewdest of all politicians. He is riding a wave, without articulating an implementable programme of reform. In the process, the establishment has been divided, the judiciary has fissures within and the political parties are poles apart.
Ironically, the judiciary has jumped in to bring the warring parties together. The coalition’s betting on the supremacy of the Parliament is failing. The faux pas on supplementary budget undid it. Or, is it the petition by an alien?
Published in The Express Tribune, April 21st, 2023.
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