Wardi-Special: Aspects of Re-Election
Understanding Pakistan Project Team September 23rd, 2007
Guest Post By: Syed Sharfuddin
THE Constitution of Pakistan lays down three clear requirements for the office of president. The first is that he will be elected. The second requirement is that he should hold office for a term of five years. The third requirement is that he should not be eligible for re-election after remaining president for more than two consecutive terms.
The first requirement (the source of the current president’s power), in the event of his non-election, derives from the democratic mandate he received from the people of Pakistan in the referendum of April 2002 in which he was the sole candidate. The president subsequently received a vote of confidence by the parliamentary electoral college through a special session of each House of parliament and each provincial assembly in January 2004. Neither of these actions could satisfy the election requirement stipulated in Article 41 of the Constitution until this article was given a soft landing by adding clauses (7), (8) and (9) through the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) act 2003. Thankfully, these clauses are valid only for the current term of the president’s office.
On the second requirement, there is a great deal of confusion over when it began and when it would expire. This is because General Musharraf has been in power for more than seven years and has worn several hats during this period, including that of president.
The establishment view is that the current term of president began on November 16, 2002, and is set to expire on November 15, 2007. The next president of Pakistan should be chosen by the assemblies some time between September 15 and October 15, 2007.
As former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmad’s recent appraisal of the Constitution has shown, there are several intentional or residual anomalies in Chapter 1 of Part 3 of the Constitution. When the time comes to invoke these in the application of law, these are most likely to lend themselves to political interpretation instead of standing on their own legal ground.
Like the act pertaining to the president’s holding of another office, the current parliament can be called upon to give legal cover to a political interpretation of how the issue of the term of president and his re-election is to be presented to the nation. Given the record of past legislation, it is most unlikely that the parliament will deny the government what it wants.
So how can politics influence a debate which is purely a matter of law? The previous occupiers of this post have not left a healthy precedent to guide the nation in this regard.
One of things that I’ve often said in my writings (and otherwise) about Pakistan’s messy and un-inspiring politics is that it is one dominated by personalities rather than issues. In Pakistan, personalities, in the absence of checks and balances, have often become bigger than institutions with the result that we have failed–in the 60 year old history of our country–in creating institutions. This alone has caused immeasurable damage to the country over time.
When I was writing this post this morning, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had not decided this case in the favor of Nawaz Sharif and his family’s “inalienable and unqualified” right to return to Pakistan. Then Understanding Pakistan’s long-planned switchover from its servers to the new (much faster one!) ran into some glitches and the site remained inaccessible for several hours. I wanted to comment upon and archive the original copy of Nawaz-Government deal. Now, with the decision already made much of the post has been made redundant but I will do so anyway to if only to archive this agreement on Understanding Pakistan. So, here is my post, as it stood in the morning (I shall return to it later to update it with new developments)
We are all aware of how our political parties are run by a few personalities without any regard for democratic principles. We also know how this seriously weakens the parties and impacts their ability to address the issues of the people and stand up to the establishment where needed. Even now, while most of the party workers of PPP are against any deal, BB is having talks with Musharraf in sheer disregard of the majority opinion in her party. Many opportunistic politicians are holding negotiations for tickets with more than one party without any commitment to any ideology or manifesto. All this naturally undermines the political process and prevents it from having much relevance to the people at the grass roots level.
Loading ...