Amending the constitution

Thanks to the dynamics of political power the very debate that was expected to restore the 1973 Constitution to its pre-1999 condition tends to precipitate yet another power tussle in the country.
The unanimity of view on the annulment of the Seventeenth Amendment, embraced by democratic forces during the dark days of General Musharraf's rule, seems to be giving way to a contentious national debate, with erstwhile comrades-in-arms espousing varying, often conflicting, viewpoints. However, in that rainbow of politics two strands stand out more clearly. The first, propounded so well by the PML (N) and its former allies in the APDM, pushes for the supremacy of parliament by taking away powers the president had snatched under the Seventeenth Amendment. The second, representing the 'hidden agenda' of the PPP, seems geared to sabotaging the first. Crudely put, a constitutional battle is in the making between President Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, reviving a feeling of déjà vu.
In the 1990s, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan first dismissed the Benazir Bhutto-headed PPP government and then of Nawaz Sharif's. He had this power under Article 58-2(b), a constitutional provision introduced by General Ziaul Haq. On assumption of power for the second stint Nawaz Sharif undid the said Article, thanks to his heavy mandate, by legislating an Amendment, that shifted the balance of power in his favour. He had all the powers, his pre-eminence sharply contrasted by a weak presidency. However, that did not work and soon enough he ran into trouble with the third pillar of the so-called troika of power, the army chief. Thus in a short span of 11 years Pakistan had four elected governments, all but one dismissed by powerful presidents, generating public demand for 'balance of power' between the office of the president and the parliament.
But any such move would militate not only against democratic norms as it is impregnated with germs that breed political instability. According to the book, the elected governments are either presidential or parliamentary. In Pakistan, we had inherited the parliamentary form of government, and the 1956 and 1973 constitutions were built around this basic concept - only to be disturbed by Bonapartism when coup makers wanted all state powers concentrated in their persons and systems. The Seventeenth Amendment is one such notorious instance.
As debate around the need to annul or amend the Seventeenth Amendment proliferates care must be taken to ensure that in the process we don't create a presidency more powerful than the parliament. In fact, the effort must be directed at converting the office of president into a ceremonial entity, a position it holds in all working parliamentary systems of government. In Pakistan, there should be the parliament that should be considered as the repository of the national will.
The president should be separated from the parliament, as was the constitutional position before Ziaul Haq's Eighth Amendment. No grudge against the president having all the pomp and show befitting his ceremonial office as head of state. But he should surrender his powers to make appointments to high offices in the civilian and military establishments to the prime minister.
But the office of the prime minister must be clearly defined also, in that he should be treated only as the first among the equals in the cabinet. It should be the cabinet where the executive power should reside, not in the prime minister as is the case presently. Nor should he go around flaunting trappings of a head of state.
The work that is cut out for the draftsmen of various political parties is to think beyond today and much further away from the present incumbents of high offices and their potential rivals. Experience has shown that neither the presidential empowerment under 58-2(b) nor the two-thirds heavy mandate could secure the incumbents in their high offices. It is the institutions, and not individuals, that can only withstand the winds of change.
No doubt there is the need to improve the quality of governance by amending the constitution. But any such exercise must not be individual-centric, as presently the case seems to be. Frankly speaking, it is the PPP legal eagles that are responsible for the current 'tamasha'. But for their backing out from their public declarations, be these in the form of charter of democracy or Asif Ali Zardari's personal pledges, the crisis spun around the Seventeenth Amendment would have been defused by now.