PPP's Rabbani opposes creation of new provinces

Former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has strongly opposed the creation of new provinces, arguing that Pakistan's governance failures are not a consequence of its existing four-province structure but the result of repeated constitutional and democratic setbacks.

In a press statement issued on Sunday, Rabbani said the recent debate on creating new provinces and the alleged failure of the governance system had "stirred a hornet's nest."

He said the country's governance problems had arisen due to a range of factors, including the repeated derailment of the democratic process, ceding political space to the civil-military bureaucracy, centralisation of powers in Islamabad and allowing dictators to amend the Constitution.

He said governance issues also stemmed from experimenting with multiple governance models since 1947, policy decisions being taken outside Parliament, failure to hold free, fair and transparent elections, governance in violation of the Constitution, disregard for the constitutional principle of separation of powers, rule by law instead of the rule of law, and denial of provincial autonomy.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

Rabbani said Pakistan was created as a federation in which all four federating units had unanimously acceded to the state through democratic instruments.