18th Amendment Bill: Rabbani warns government of backlash if it fails to implement

Veteran PPP leader, Senator Raza Rabbani on Wednesday warned the government of an "unpleasant backlash" could hit the political system if it failed to implement the newly adopted 18th Amendment. "If the 18th Amendment was not implemented, its fallback will be dangerous and the hopes tied to it will render an unpleasant backlash," he said while answering to a number of questions during his speech at Karachi Press Club's meet the press function.
He said that nothing can stop a military dictator from taking over even a document [the 18th Amendment], but a political system with continuity, strong institutions and the public would daunt such anti-democracy ambitions. The new amendment of the Constitution was aimed at bringing stability to the fragile political setup, he said.
Highlighting the different aspects of the amendment, he said that they made it a unique document for reasons: handing over of powers by an incumbent president to the parliament, the omission of names of military dictators from the Constitution for good, repealing of LFO and 17th Amendment- "the black stain of a dictator."
He said that the amendment had partially dealt with the provincial autonomy as a primary initiative, as there much room towards the complete autonomy. He noticed that the longer military interventions had delayed the resolution of the autonomy and regretted that the Constitution's complete implementation would have saved the provinces from confrontations.
He said that the amendment had given the provinces a maximum autonomy in the country's history and lauded the Baloch nationalist leadership for its support and consent to evolve and approve the bill into a law. Rabbani said that the amendment had not disturbed or altered the fundamentals of the Constitution eg its clauses of the country's identity of Islam, parliamentary system, judicial independence, human rights etc, nor it had put any restrictions on them.
He however, conceded that the PPP had deviated from chartered of democracy in the course of evolving the amendment to ensure the judicial independence. He said that it was more than a Constitutional Amendment a logical result of a political struggle of 37 years, which had finally brought all the political parties close to a natural consensus.
The amendment will draw up clear lines of the country's future and enhance the relations amongst the provinces, he hoped. Answering to a question, the Senator said that there was no official document available suggesting the abolishment of the concurrent list 10 years after making of the Constitution, however, in the amendment a large number of subjects had now been devolved to the provinces except few.
He added that the energy subject of concurrent list had not been given to provinces for its national grid, which was brought under the Council of Common Interest [CCI]. CCI will be revived, as there was only meeting held since its creation, he said. Rabbani maintained that the power of collecting general sales tax on services had been given to provinces but not on goods yet. Regarding the promotion of provincial languages, he said that there was no bar by the federal government.
The procedure of judges' appointment was more rationale in the amendment as compared to the one suggested by the lawyers. He added that the discretion of the President and Prime Minister for judges' appointment had been removed in the law and increased the "mode of consultation" in this connection.