The provinces will never have autonomy, the Punjab will always dominate other provinces, Assemblies will continue to be dissolved prematurely and the heads of state and government will always be in conflict unless the present Constitution is scrapped.
That is not all. Since the present Constitution is based on parliamentary system, all other vices of the system will remain. The appointment of ministers will never be on merit alone as their selection depends on the support of their party or a substantial number of MNAs.
Nor will the ministers be ever sacked even after proven to be incompetent, dishonest and corrupt, as long as they are on good terms with the party leader or have substantial support in the party. The curse of instability of coalition governments will never go away because major political parties ceased to win absolute majority years ago. (Even now, there are coalitions in the center and half of the provinces).
Powers of dictator. One of the biggest myths is that Parliament is sovereign. In the parliamentary system, the actual sovereign is the Prime Minister. The cabinet, party's parliamentary party and even Parliament cannot do anything against his wishes. He has control over Parliament, executive, bureaucracy, judiciary, armed forces, even presidency. The President in the presidential system does not come even close.
Though elected, the Prime Minister has the powers of a dictator. (Hitler too was elected by parliament. So was Mussolini.) Even in UK, there were recently serious objections to the concept of "Sovereign in Parliament" that allowed Prime Minister Tony Blair to join the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq despite the opposition of the people. He refused to resign even when Parliament, despite his hard sell, rejected his plea for a law for longer detention of suspected terrorists.
In Britain, Parliament took away the powers of the king and gradually reduced him to a mere figurehead, unable to have his way even in personal matters. (King Edward VIII had to abdicate in 1936 because the Prime Minister did not allow him to marry a divorced woman of his choice.) In the process, Prime Minister ended up replacing the king, with far more powers.
We do not have monarchy but we did have prime ministers, who aspired tobe Mughal emperors and ruled with at best a small kitchen cabinet of cohorts. Even the political pigmies tried to be giants.
Politicians in the parliamentary system reduce politics to politicking, either to keep the government propped up (if in power) or to bring it down (if out of power). Governance suffers because it is neither given prime attention, nor prime time.
Though Parliament alone produces cabinet ministers, it is unable to monitor and control them because of the absence of strong political parties and the peculiar political pressures inherent in the parliamentary system. Government comes to serve only the interests of the ministers and party leaders. This leads to disaffection within the legislature, party and ultimately the people. In turn, political instability arises, with all its adverse implications.
Not for federations. Parliamentary system is not suitable for a federation. The politicians, who idealise the British system as "the mother of parliamentary system," do not realise that UK is a unitary state while we are a federation. How can we have a system that is meant for a state that has no provinces?
The unitary system in UK ensures that the largest region, England, dominates all others in everything. Scotland and Wales have been clamouring for ages for autonomy; they have finally got nothing more than regional assemblies. The third region, Ireland, chose separation long ago and became an independent state. Do we want permanent domination of Punjab over other provinces, like that of England? ("England" is often used even as the name of the country, in place of Britain or UK)
India faces a similar situation. Under Article 1 of the Constitution, "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States." The larger provinces of the north have been dominating the central government through their larger number of MPs. Consequently, all Prime Ministers since Independence came from the north, mostly UP.
In our case, there would have never been any prime minister from any other province but for the generosity of the MNAs from the Punjab.
Origin of problem: The opponents of Z A Bhutto had an illusionary victory when they forced him to have a parliamentary constitution in 1973. They should have allowed him to have the presidential system that he desperately wanted and then insisted on effective checks and balances to restrain him.
Instead, they ended up giving him even as the prime minister all the powers that he wanted. The office of prime minister became extremely powerful, reducing the president to a figurehead.
The opposition leaders also conceded centralisation of powers, with little autonomy for the provinces. Bhutto's verbal commitment on the floor of the house to abolish the Concurrent Legislative List after 10 years was never honoured, even though his party came to power twice afterwards. Neither Muslim League nor People's Party gave more autonomy to the provinces, though each party demanded it vociferously when in opposition.
New Constitution: What should we do now? Adopt a sensible and course. The Federal Government should appoint a Constitution Commission, consisting of a small number of non-political and independent experts. They may consult all stakeholders.
The Commission should prepare a constitution of truly federal character, with effective checks and balances between the executive and the legislature. It should provide for direct election of President and Governors. Parliament should have a single house, National Assembly, with its total seats divided equally among all provinces, irrespective of population, thus eliminating the dominance of the Punjab and making the Senate unnecessary.
The Commission's task will become easier if it adopts the recommendations of the Constitution Commission that was appointed by President Ayub Khan. That Commission prepared its report, published in 1961, after an extensive countrywide survey of public opinion. (Ayub Khan did not have the courage to adopt his own Commission's recommendations, such as a direct election of the President, rather than through 120,000 basic democrats. Then he had Governors appointed by him, not elected. As a result, he ended up with a sham presidential system).
New provinces: The equal distribution of seats among the provinces will create an incentive for all provinces to be redrawn into smaller, more manageable ones, based only on administrative and social convenience. Every new province should have the same name as that of its capital, thus eliminating provincialism. The ethnic and linguistic considerations should be ignored because the consequence will be only continuous tension, disharmony, even conflict. (India decided to create new provinces in 1966. Even after 40 years, there is no end to demands for new ones on linguistic bases.) No new province should have a population more than 10-15 millions.
The small size will enable good governance and accelerate the development of backward regions. (At present, less developed areas in large provinces do not get proper attention).
Constituent Assembly: The next general election should lead to a Constituent Assembly. Its first task should be to approve, with necessary amendments, the draft constitution prepared by the Constitution Commission. The approval should not take more than a few weeks. The drafts of previous constitutions, in 1956, 1962 and 1973, never took longer than that for approval.
To summarise, the new Constitution should give us a federal presidential system, providing.
a) directly elected President with limited executive powers.
b) stability of full term for every Parliament
c) capable and honest ministers, hired and fired at any time
d) maximum autonomy to provinces
e) protection to smaller provinces against domination of larger ones
These are good enough reasons to have a new Constitution.