Writing on the wall

On September 20, the joint session of the parliament ended without finding a solution that could end the over 5-week long public protests in Islamabad (that are now becoming countrywide) demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister of Punjab and several federal and provincial ministers, for their alleged gross misconduct. However, before ending the parliament's joint session, the Prime Minister made a long speech therein, and a resolution was passed "emphatically" reiterating the parliament's "unequivocal, unwavering and unqualified resolve to uphold the supremacy of the Constitution, the democratic system, sanctity of state institutions, rule of law, and sovereignty of parliament."
The parliament's much touted resolve to uphold supremacy of the Constitution, the democratic system and rule of law, is becoming a joke because of its controversial support for a regime that (the parliamentarians admit and claim) came into power through rigged elections. The real tragedy is that the parliamentarians don't see this dichotomy in their stance.
Rumours had been circulating that the original script of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan with signatures thereon of all the then constituent assembly members and the president, has been stolen. Now a petition has been filed in the Sindh High Court calling for an investigation into the alleged theft of the original script of the 1973 Constitution.
Parliamentary sources confirm that the original of the 1973 Constitution wasn't available in the National Assembly archives. Before the passage of the 18th Amendment, the then National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza wanted to examine the original copy of the Constitution, but was informed that the original was missing, but the matter wasn't pursued further.
So much for the 'real' concern the parliamentarians have for the Constitution. As for upholding it, how much they care about implementing the Constitution's key Articles 62 and 63 is portrayed by the multiplicity of the allegations against them; instead of providing undeniable evidence of their being clean, they ask their accusers to prove those allegations.
The latest mess they have created is the debate over creating 'more' provinces to improve governance. Indeed, the rapid rise in population, size of the cities, towns and villages, and consequent demand for expanding the essential civic services, required a radical change in the profile of governance. But that doesn't require creating 'more' provinces; it requires something else.
What these long denied trends require is increasing the number of administrative units in each province and their rational empowerment - truly active local governments - that the parliament doesn't want; sharing power with those who deserve it isn't the philosophy of the parliamentarians. An over-centralised power structure makes the parliament 'supreme', though it always fails to deliver.
Addressing his supporters in Karachi on September 21, Imran Khan acted sensibly by not responding to the provocative comments of MQM's Khushbakht Shujaat, a day earlier, on the subject of creating more provinces. Instead he proposed setting up of more administrative units in each province and provincial governments' support for, and empowerment of the local government system.
What we witnessed last week in the 'United' Kingdom should serve as a lesson for all over-centralised states. What the Westminster (mother of all parliaments?) failed to deliver for three centuries was a progressively more decentralised system of state governance; it bred discontent in Scotland to a breaking point - a fact admitted by Prime Minister David Cameron.
But Pakistan has a peculiar political culture; our politicians never admit failures. Instead, when criticised for bad governance, especially corruption, in-power politicians respond by citing instances of similar mal-governance by the earlier regimes and ask "why didn't you hold those regimes accountable?" The message is "now it is our turn to do the same, so just shut up."
Going by the way Pakistani politicians' respond to criticism over bad governance, their response to the scenario in Pakistan would be "if the British took three centuries to realise their governance flaws, why do you expect us to overcome these flaws so quickly?" But what these politicians don't notice (or pretend not to notice) is that they have been damaged beyond repair.
Nawaz Sharif displays this denial in an amazing manner when he says "how can I be forced to resign by a mere 5,000 dissenters when I have been elected by 180 million people?" Unless even breast-fed babies also cast their votes in his favour, he couldn't have been blessed with 180 million votes. This is one stunning example of how shockingly wrong can a politician be.
Besides his party's getting the majority in the National Assembly being controversial, what is much more is his government's failure to deliver on its rosy promises held out to the voters. Did power loadshedding go down, were the power tariffs brought down, was inflation (not as per FBS estimates) brought down, and are PIA and Pakistan Railways any better off?
In his address to the parliament Nawaz Sharif said that it was out of respect for democratic values that his government didn't "clear" the Constitution Avenue of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) protestors (litter, are they?). Is that so, or is it because his worried supporters and the CoAS warned him not to do so?
Nawaz Sharif keeps insisting that his government has agreed to the demands of PAT and PTI (now classified as litter) and therefore these parties no longer have any reason to continue their protest. That too isn't true. Their key demand is the resignation of the Sharif brothers because, with them in power, none of the demanded investigations could remain unbiased.
PAT and PTI have their flaws (but fortunately, not a record of mal-governance - the stigma on PML-N and PPP), but the instances of mal-governance, cronyism, corruption, and resource waste under PML-N and PPP exposed by PAT and PTI are undeniable, and have hurt PML-N and PPP beyond repair. The last nail may be the shocking disclosures by Governor Punjab Chaudhry Sarwar.
While visiting flood-affected areas, the public response Nawaz Sharif had to contend with clearly indicated the slide his regime's popularity, though full extent thereof wasn't exposed in the Western media. But on his forthcoming visit to New York, he may confront hundreds shouting the "Go Nawaz Go" slogan, which could expose world-wide his unacceptability to the people of Pakistan as their Prime Minister.
The clearly readable writing on the wall is that, after their weaknesses being exposed and not refuted in the credible manner they deserved to be refuted, the existing lot of parliamentarians (with some respectable exceptions) has lost the confidence of the masses. To go on adoring the parliament despite this development amounts to defying stark ground realities.