EDITORIAL: Now, the choice of the interim prime minister and his cabinet – the entire caretaker setup – is all the rage. And, once again, what ought to be a simple procedural matter is being dragged all the way to Dubai and London, confirming to ordinary Pakistanis that the constitutionally mandated route of government and opposition hammering it out is not being followed and there’s nothing they can do about it.
It even went so far, according to the press, that PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif wanted his friend and relative, and finance minister, Ishaq Dar for the spot, but PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) wouldn’t have a “man from the Sharif family” leading a “neutral setup”.
Otherwise, the finance minister’s family connections, which got him out of intensive care in London to the finance ministry in Islamabad, might have catapulted him all the way to the interim premiership.
It’s troubling enough that less than a month before the government’s scheduled departure, and just a couple of months from the general election, the process of choosing and appointing a caretaker administration has barely begun.
Yet, since we’ve gone through this exercise often enough in a similar manner, it’s also pretty vexing that nobody’s ever questioned its rationale and relevance, especially since it wastes so much time and money and most progressive democracies seem to do just fine without it.
The bit about neutrality, which PPP alluded to, barely passes the test of history because there have been far too many cases of caretaker prime ministers and ministers taking more than their share from the official pie.
What’s wrong with the incumbent hanging on till all parties go into an election? It would see through the transition period with limited powers, of course, as happens in most countries. But that would require a very sovereign and duly empowered election commission, which is where we start to run into problems.
Perhaps that explains why no administration has ever been too interested in working on the commission’s integrity and credibility. Still, this isn’t a problem that cannot be solved and it should, at least, be looked into very carefully.
In our system, the time when one government must go and an interim setup takes its place, is always controversial, especially the process of choosing the appropriate people for it. It also wastes time and, more importantly, resources when the state has much of neither to burn over trivialities that can be easily avoided.
It’s important that democracy, just like other important systems, delivers results in addition to simply existing as something that we’ve been told is desperately needed. What good are processes if all they do is create controversy and waste time? The time when one administration hands the reins of power over to another is a very important and sensitive one for the country.
And it’s amply clear that the process we have in place isn’t working as smoothly as it was intended to. Even now, on top of all the uncertainty about the general election, the caretaker setup will only be finalised when party bigwigs, not presently holding top office, decide on the names they like and the heads of government and opposition merely rubber-stamp their decision.
The next few years are going to be all about reforms, no doubt, but they won’t be limited to the economy. The country’s politics, especially how our particular version of democracy allows some of the biggest fish to avoid taxes, will also need an overhaul.
And while we’re at it, perhaps some thought can also go into doing away with the provision of caretaker setups and all the headaches they bring.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023