Thread: Editorial: DAWN
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Old Thursday, January 05, 2012
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Default New provinces

New provinces
Jan 5th 2012

THE debate over the creation of new provinces is turning into a textbook case of the promotion of political interests over common sense and even genuinely held beliefs. With a number of mainstream parties jumping into the fray in the National Assembly on Tuesday, it became obvious what their goals really were: to score points against political opponents, to win points among certain groups of voters, and to try to set up new provincial boundaries that could be politically favourable in the future. Each party`s support for, or opposition to, various proposed divisions of provinces was in line with its political ambitions, alliances and rivalries.

What got lost in all of this was the notion that any such changes, whether for administrative purpo-ses or linguistic, historical or nationalistic reasons, should arise from within the provinces themselves rather than being imposed from the top down. While we support the idea of more provinces, and for cultural, linguistic and historical reasons a separate unit in south Punjab appears to be the obvious first move, the history of Pakistan`s creation cannot be forgotten in this debate. This is not a country that created its provinces; the provinces themselves came together to create Pakistan. Such a significant decision about which groups they represent or how they need to govern themselves more effectively should arise from their own populations. The constitution itself reflects this; the creation of a new province would require not just a two-thirds majority to be in favour of it in both houses of parliament, but also in the assembly of the province in question. The MQM spent consider- able energy on Tuesday demanding a National Assembly debate on its resolution calling for divisions of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the prime minister added to this his support for a Seraiki province in southern Punjab, in turn eliciting dissent from other parties. Given the historical and constitutional arguments that these debates should originate at the provincial level, this sound and fury achieved little beyond strengthening political divisions and distracting lawmakers from the series of more urgent problems that Pakistan is facing.
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