By P.K.Balachandran/Daily News
Colombo, March 5: Last Sunday, Pakistan’s National Assembly elected Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister amidst protests by the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) whose supremo is the incarcerated former Prime Minister and mass agitator, Imran Khan.
Members of the PTI vehemently charged that the National Assembly was “incomplete” without allocating to their party, seats reserved for women and minorities which it was entitled to on the basis of the number of seats it had won in the February 8 elections.
With 93 members in the PNA, the PTI is the single-largest group in the House. And as per the rules, it should get 23 of the 70 seats reserved for women and the minorities and which are distributed among parties in the House on the basis of proportional representation. But the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not taken a decision on allocating reserved seats to the PTI.
However, as per law, the new Assembly session was called on February 29 and the Prime Minister was elected subsequently.
Reserved Seats Issue
On the question of reserved seats, the issue before the ECP was whether the PTI was entitled to seek reserved seats since its members had fought the February 8 elections as “Independents”.
Following widespread violence against the ouster of Imran Khan’s government in 2022 and his incarceration on 150 charges in 2023, the PTI was de-recognised, its symbol a “Cricket bat” was frozen and its candidates had to fight as Independents.
But Imran Khan’s campaign against corruption and the army’s alleged support for corrupt politicians struck a chord among the masses and the PTI-backed Independents emerged as the single largest group in the National Assembly. While the PTI-backed Independents numbered 93, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) led by the brothers Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif numbered 75 and the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) led by Asif Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto 54 in the House.
While the PML(N), PPP and other parties got their share of the reserved seats for women and the minorities, PTI was denied it even though the PTI-backed Independents had joined a party called “Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC)” and had laid claim to the reserved seats.
The other parties argued before the ECP that the Sunni Ittehad Council had not contested the elections and therefore had no claim to any reserved seats. Further, Independents could not join a non-parliamentary party and make any claims in the latter’s name.
Also, to get the reserved seats, a party should have submitted a list of candidates ahead of the elections. Neither the SIC nor the PTI Independents had done so.
But the PTI’s counter argument was that the law did not say that the Independents can only join a party which has representation in the House and that a list to fill the reserved seats could be submitted even later and quoted precedents to this effect.
Be that as it may, the ECP kept dragging its feet perhaps wondering if the army (which in Pakistan is considered to be the “Establishment” and therefore the most important State institution) would like PTI to be a stronger force in the House than it already is.
Indeed, there was no love lost between the army and Imran Khan who had charged it with making attempts to throw him out of office by conspiring with the Americans, and even trying to assassinate him. Khan’s followers had attacked army establishments in the 2023 riots.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said the reserved seats should be allotted to the SIC. Narrow technicalities such as the requirement of submitting a priority list of candidates for reserved seats prior to election should be dispensed with because a whole new parliamentary party has emerged in the National and Provincial Assemblies made up of Independents. A new situation needs new laws.
But Constitutional expert Hafiz Ehsaan Ahmad Khokhar said that Independents cannot join political parties that do not have any seat in the relevant assembly. The reserved seats issue will eventually go to the Supreme Court, whose verdict will be final and for good or ill.
Rigged Elections
Besides the question of reserved seats, the PTI has been vocal on the broader issue of State institutions rigging the February 8 elections. The PTI claims that it really won 177 seats and not 93. Many of the results are disputed. The de-recognition of the PTI and the denial of the symbol the “Cricket bat” are also among the grievances.
Last Saturday, PTI supporters staged demonstrations across major cities. The party also has received international support. On February 28, over 30 members of the US House of Representatives, in a letter, asked President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to withhold recognition of the new government in Pakistan until an investigation into the elections is conducted. They also said military cooperation with the Sharif government should be suspended if the wrongs are not corrected.
On his part, Imran Khan has appealed to the IMF not to sanction a bailout (of about US$ 6 billion) before conducting an audit on the election process.
Experts say that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will face multiple challenges right from the start. ” The Sharif government will have to negotiate economic relief from the IMF, meet its tax revenue commitments without raising daily commodity prices amid high inflation, and manage governance without getting sucked into a political confrontation with a very hostile opposition both inside the Parliament and on social media,” Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based political analyst, told Nikkei Asia.
The economic problems Sharif will face are daunting. According to Michel Kugelman,of the Wilson Centre, in 2023, Pakistan experienced record inflation. Foreign exchange reserves fell to their lowest level in nearly a decade. External debt servicing was the highest ever. Over the 2022–2023 fiscal year the economy fell by US$ 33.4 billion and per capita income declined by 11%, all new records.
A whopping 900,000 skilled workers, including doctors, paramedics and accountants left Pakistan. Pakistan came perilously close to a default. The country survives on borrowed money said economist Kaisar Bengali. Human development indices are at levels one sees in much poorer countries.
Army Backs Sharif
However, the saving grace for Sharif is that he has the backing of the army, without which no government will survive in Pakistan. Politicians routinely accuse each other of being “selected” by the army and not “elected” by the people. Nawaz Sharif is said to have lost power in 2018 partly because he alienated the army. Imran Khan lost power in April 2022 when he had a run-in with army. But now Shehbaz Sharif is said to be the army’s man.
However, if the working environment gets discordant because of the agitation politics of the PTI, coercive measures might be taken by the Sharif government.
Imran Khan is a powerful mass communicator. The PTI rules the social media both at home and abroad. Unlike the PML (N), the PTI and its leader are seasoned street agitators. Imran Khan’s entry into politics and much of his career have been backed by agitation politics marked by high decibel mass rallies and long marches.
There is another problem Sharif might have to face- the attitude of his ally, the Peoples’ Party of Pakistan led by Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto. The PPP is part of the six party ruling coalition headed by Sharif but it is not part of the government. This is because the government will be facing massive problems and the PPP would rather not be in the thick of the mess. It wants to keep a safe distance and opt out if need be.
However, for the time being, the PML(N) and the PPP are together in order to survive because a break will result in another election where their prospects are uncertain. As part of the current deal, Asif Zardari of the PPP will be elected President of Pakistan on March 9.
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