In an alternate world

If there is one rational stand that the PDM can anchor their stance on in the current stand-off it is their position to hold elections to all assemblies, provincial and national, on one day. The way the process is mandated in the constitution and the Elections Act is optimised for same-day elections. That doesn’t mean elections may not be held for an assembly before time — which may dissolve for any number of reasons — per the constitution, but the framers did not explicitly so conceive the possibility and failed to delineate ways to resolve the dilemma of conflict with other statutes, if one arose, as is the case now.

The mandated requirement to hold elections under an interim government restricts the separate institution of elections to one or two assemblies when a fully tenured constitutional government is in place and elections to the national assembly come due. Can a regular government, already in place, oversee national elections from the province where it sits? The constitution does not offer a remedy. The same would apply if all provincial assemblies were in place but the national assembly dissolved. This is another un-envisaged challenge which needs attention through legislative redressal.

Following the 18^th Amendment and the plethora of other amendments to the constitution the option to expressly dismiss all assemblies simultaneously no longer exists. It thus leaves two options: one, that comprehensive legal remedy is crafted to remove conflicts while adhering to the spirit of electoral democracy posed by dissolution of an assembly earlier than its time. Alternatively, it may be considered that a provincial or a national assembly may never dissolve till completion of its tenure forcing upon it to seek solutions within. If for some reason an assembly becomes untenable as a component of Parliament it must carry the concurrence of both, the leader of the House and the leader of the opposition, to dismiss an assembly before time. That will, one, ensure completion of a full term, and two, ensure that a dismissal is not used as a political stratagem to gain political advantage at the cost of hurting the system. It also will endow resilience to a political system which is notorious for its fickleness. This will also lead to holding elections simultaneously to all assemblies.

In its current form the constitution and the Elections Act are quite inadequately stitched to find wholesome remedies to emerging challenges in politics. These anomalies must be removed before elections are held. None, but the current parliament must take on this defining objective purposefully and earnestly. To this end, PTI members, since restored to their positions in the NA, must be readmitted without fail and become the vehicle along with those sitting on the Treasury benches to enact the necessary legislation.

Getting the two sides to work together and reach a consensus on how to proceed to the point of elections from where we stand as a polity will solve the issue that plagues the moment. If indeed the PTI agrees to return to the NA and the Speaker and the PDM have heart large enough for this to happen, it will open the door to not only some essential legislation which can address the anomalies but provide assured direction through constitutional amendments to how democracy and its structures may viably evolve for the future. It will also mean that the current dilemma of elections as ordained by the constitution and thus the SC may be satisfactorily settled after the fully representative NA enters a joint plea before the SC to review its orders around the new legislation.

Can or should the SC yield to revise its order in the interest of a long-term stabilisation political measure especially after the laws are amended to meet emergent anomalies? Yes, it should. While the constitution is supreme and is the mantra for how we function as a state, government, and a society, it remains a patently man-conceived, man-detailed and man-driven document which, as is now apparent, does not address all constitutional or legal predicaments. An odd revision mostly clarified through a judicial interpretation, when one is needed, may be useful but when too many conflicts arrive and too many interpretations contradict it is time for a wholesale review. Inviting the PTI to rejoin the NA gives cause to cool tempers, stabilise the existing order till its natural culmination at the end of the five-year tenure, and lead to fresh elections per the mandated legal and electoral requirements. It will ease the entirely unnecessary turmoil pitching institutions against each other and within — just because certain political and constitutional arisings aren’t resolved because of the inadequacies in conception in the constitution.

Just as the government is seen to be farming against mandated elections to the two assemblies, the opposition (PTI) too can be faulted for cleverly dissolving two assemblies before time to force a constitutional dilemma and force elections. When the going was rough for the PTI in power similar voices by many in the PTI, constitutional experts and political commentators had proposed early elections which the PTI farmed against equally. It has been a game of cat and mouse between the two political opponents causing untold harm to the common man and the economy at large. It is time for them to instead take two steps back from the brink and talk to ease the common man’s pain — just two steps back. That is what will bring us solace with their productive engagement and help us scale the challenge. Wonder, what is bigger than the state and the people which keeps them from this simplest two-step process to resolution?

How will the jurisprudential puritans adjust to it? If the above scenarios appeal to them for their inadequacies in legal remedy, there is reason for the rules to be fleshed out before reaching binding dictates based around incomplete legislative conception. True, it might bring back embarrassing memories of the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and place on stake the sanctity of the constitution — even if inadequate — around which jurisprudence functions and prides in but then the same constitution has been mauled by including uniformed dictators as bona fide rulers and extending army chiefs by name through constitutional incorporation. Here it is a matter of stakes of the over 220 million people and the imperative of their interest which must be secured in unambiguous legislation. A jurisprudential exception can always condone variations from its earlier orders and from conflictive constitutional statutes till those are resolved by representative forums.

What about the two provinces in question? A 4-month long technocratic replacement of the current interim order or an extension to their current status with reinforced and greatly more capable administrators can fill the void. It is the time for answering unusual challenges with unusual options. We shouldn’t be seen to dither.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2023.

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