The government did not do any good to its own image or the democratic process when on Monday it rushed through the National Assembly a bill that allows politicians to hold public and party offices at the same time. It was hurriedly passed after the Speaker suspended the rules of business that give the members at least two days to debate a bill, which can only be seen as an attempt to avoid embarrassing criticism by the Opposition parties.
The Opposition parties, too, did not want to prevent the passage of the bill, which basically overturns President General Pervez Musharraf's own earlier prescription for political parties' functioning as contained in an article of the Political Parties Order (PPO), 2002.
Apparently, all they wanted was to make some noise and embarrass the government through the demand that it delay the bill until the August 18 by-elections that are to decide the political fate of the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz. Some of the prominent opposition members who got the opportunity to get heard said that the amendment to the PPO, 2002, was reflective of mala fide intentions as it was aimed at helping the government functionaries to use public resources in the by-elections. This criticism, though, makes little sense.
For, as our turbulent electoral history shows, government officials do not need to be office bearers of the ruling party in order to employ state power in favour of one or the other candidate.
However, the charge of mala fide intentions holds in another context. Notably, at the time the PPO had slapped a ban on people holding both party and public office, the government had described it as a reform that would democratise the internal functioning of political parties.
On the face of it, the law seemed to be fine since, as a matter of norm rather than exception, most parties did not hold regular elections to party offices.
Their top leaders claimed their positions as a hereditary right, and also enjoyed the power to nominate favourites to central as well as provincial party offices. If the purpose was to introduce a democratic culture within the parties, that could have been achieved through a simple amendment in the Political Parties Act, making it mandatory for the parties to hold periodic elections to all offices.
After all, government leaders in functioning parliamentary democracies in Britain and India also are not barred from serving in public offices. But democratisation of the parties was not the real objective of the PPO; it was to break the hold of the main opposition leaders, the PPP's Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N's Mian Nawaz Sharif, on their respective parties. That is what makes the PPO and the present amendment both suspect in public view.
A new set-up is now in place. Accordingly, the 2002 law has now been reversed to suit the changed political scenario, and it is to become effective retroactively from December 13, 2003, in order to cover the violations of the PPO in the past eighteen months.
As it is, the present prime minister is the president of the ruling PML-Q while the chief ministers of Punjab and Sindh are its provincial party heads.
Apparently, they find it necessary to hold both public office and party positions to keep the party rank and file under control.
More, importantly, there is a chance that if and when General Musharraf decides to doff his military uniform and retain only the President's office, he would want to be the head of the ruling party too.
Given this background it is plain that the objective of the amendment is not to promote a democratic culture in the political parties but to serve the purposes of the powers that be.
Hence, the new bill, to soon become law after approval by the Senate, can only be seen as a retrogressive measure, which is aimed at the achievement of a short-term political objective.
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