Ali Ahmed Khan
In the recent past, there was substantial public debate on both social media and mainstream media as to whether the PML-N compromised the civilian supremacy narrative. There was perception in this discussion that the party had trade off over the respect for the vote narrative, as its members voted for the services tenure bill in the Parliament. Even some party stalwarts were sceptical about this decision, however, these gentlemen are thin minority with in party rank and file.
These party stalwarts need not to be apologetic on the services tenure bill, as it raises the question about the party discipline. There is no war of the narratives, but the vested interests with in party. So a very few party stalwarts mourn with the political analysts of different shades. Subsequently, some political pundits express their undue desire for the political sunset of the President PML-N. Indeed, the erosion of the credibility of the opposition leader is the political sin, lest the nation would rue the day.
It is precisely to exploit this internal politics of the party, the minister science and technology transcended his mandate few days ago and wrote a letter to Speaker National Assembly for appointment of new opposition leader, as he can not digest the status of the legitimate opposition leader.
For this reason, I intend to write this piece of writing and strive to dispel the absurdities all around. So I would dissect both the factual side and the legal side of the services tenure bill story.
It is a historic fact that the PML-N has question mark over 2018 general elections, but the party leadership recognized the defecto Parliament to save the democratic process.
Without a shred of doubt, the recent clamp down of the political dissent completes the process of the soft coup which started from the hijack of the parliamentary politics, management of the judicial process and silencing the critical voices on the national media. This blatant suppression of the fundamental rights expose the democratic pretensions of the state. It unmasks the state’s character as the security contractor. Who is afraid of the free thinkers? Who is afraid of the students? Who is afraid of the people’s politics? Truly, the emperor has no clothes in so called Naya Pakistan.
One may blame the party for this sin over the concession on the respect for the vote narrative. However, if the Opposition parties orchestrated the protest after previous general elections, the outcome of the protest would have just reinforced the lessons of history. The nation still did not forget the aftermath of the Nizam-e-Mustafa movement.
In the same vein, the PML-N voted for the said bill in the Parliament. One may blame the party for the second compromise on its public narrative, but it has the other side of the story. As a matter of fact, it could not resist the extension of the Army Chief in the Parliament, but make the post of the Army Chief controversial.
One can not expect the static politics from the PML-N, when the dynamics of the regional security changed drastically. Can somebody refute the lockdown in Indian occupied Kashmir? Can somebody be blinded by the eyeball to eyeball confrontation at the Eastern border? Can somebody ignore the turmoil erupted by the dubious citizenship bill in India?
Owing to the imminent hybrid warfare risk in this regional security paradigm shift, the PML-N exercised the political restraint in this extension question. It did not endeavor to erode the nucleus of the state power and the reason being, the PML-N is the mainstream national party, it is neither the pressure group nor the group of the non-conformist philosophers. I don’t want to cite the classic example of the Somalian failed state, the tragic fate of the Arab Spring may teach us the lesson on the survival of the state and the supremacy of the constitution.
Basically, the civilian supremacy cannot be established by the collision with the state institutions. One cannot refer to one example in the entire political history of the world. One needs to study Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Darren Acemoglu and James A. Robinson to understand the forces of the history for the evolution of the civilian supremacy principle.
The senseless collision with the state institutions just destructs the central authority of the state and plunges the nation into the Hobbesian state of nature. The by-product of this chaos would not be the civilian supremacy, but the rule of the Leviathan.
The factual analysis reflects that the PML-N entered the defecto Parliament to preserve the democratic system. Besides, it voted for the tenure bill for the survival of the state and the constitution. So it is out of question for the party to neutralize the civilian supremacy narrative.
Now, I would analyse the civilian supremacy trade-off question on the legal side. For that matter, suppose, if the PMLN abstained to vote for this services tenure bill, it had no requisite majority to pigeonhole this bill.
Apart from the party’s parliamentary limitations, it did not plan to sow the seeds of discontent in the praetorian class, and on that account, it voted in favour of the said bill for the broad consensus in the Parliament. The fault of the PMLN is; it did not desire the polarized command structure in the county.
However, the PML-N has serious concerns over the PTI regime, as the Army Chief Office was ridiculed in the Supreme Court. Because, the inept PTI government had mishandled the issue. So, the apex court suspended the extension order on the grounds of procedural anomalies.
The federal government legal team failed to articulate the case in the Supreme Court as, the Article 48 of the constitution dictates that the executive action cannot be questioned in the courts on whatsoever grounds, because the executive derives the authority from the Parliament.
Likewise, the framers of the constitution did not fix the tenure of the Army Chief just to establish the civilian supremacy, because it is the prerogative of the cabinet to define the national security situation with the consent of the Parliament. Consequently, the PML-N neither defied the spirit of the constitution nor conceded the civilian supremacy principle.
The PML-N has revised its strategy to institute the civilian supremacy principle. It is still resolved to establish the civilian supremacy, not by weakening the Army, but by strengthening the Parliament. So it needs to champion the new social contract for the sovereignty of the Parliament with in parameters of the existing constitution.
In the past, the president PML-N envisioned the national dialogue to determine the constitutional domain of the state institutions. Sadly, the stakeholders were not engaged to sit across the table to allay the trust deficit between the different organs of the state. Sadly, the stakeholders could not tread the path of his forward together narrative.
In fact, both Daren Acemoglu and James A. Robbinson in their thought provoking book, “Why Nations fail_The origins of power, prosperity and poverty” discovered the secret of the robust body politic in the contemporary world. One may infer from their thesis that both the inclusive political institutions and the inclusive economic institutions can be the antidote for the crisis of the legitimacy in governance and politics. Accordingly the mainstream national political parties should introspect critically its own functions and structures and should put its own house in order for the fictional finalism of the cherished civilian supremacy principle.
Hence, the inclusive political institutions need to reflect the evolution of the Parliament as the sovereign body and the empowerment of the local governments at the grass root level, whereas, the inclusive economic institutions need to promote the enforcement of the private property rights and dispersion of the economic power among the new stakeholders equitably.
In a nutshell, both public participation and economic development can mobilise the society to establish the civilian supremacy. And this is not possible without innovative ideas of the governance and the politics. Certainly, this vision would also subdue the elite capturism in Pakistan.
Alas! The ideas have no currency in the current political discourse of the institution building in Pakistan, but, perhaps, this column is food for thought for the political analysts, who have dream to establish the civilian supremacy in Pakistan. The basic question for these intellectuals is if in Germany, France and Japan, the institution building was driven by the national security concerns, why is Pakistan exception in this context? The political pundits need to pause, think over this question.
Rest assured, the PML-N would establish the civilian supremacy by the formation of the alliances with the broad reform coalitions in the society. Stay calm, the PML-N would not depreciate its political capital and would convert its dream into reality.
— The writer is former Director Strategy and Policy, Chief Minister office, Punjab
