March 29, 2012
Tahir Mehdi

THE 20th Amendment to the constitution goes an extra mile to ensure that democratic transition in the coming months is smooth and acceptable to everyone.

It aims to achieve this goal through two means: ensuring that the caretaker government stays non-partisan, and strengthening the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Most other countries find only the election authorities sufficient to oversee a smooth transition.

Election results are accepted by all and if the ruling party loses, it hands over the reins to the winner without the mediation of any transitional governance structure. Why do we, in the name of a caretaker government, have to witness part-time politicians taking joy rides in cars mounted with flags and given endless opportunities to sermonise on everything under the sun?

Well, that has been the standard practice in the country. Since the 1973 constitution, caretakers were slotted in by the president four times after the premature dismissal of an elected government. On all these occasions, the caretakers were heavily drawn from the opposition, parliamentary or political. The presidents concerned were hell-bent on ensuring that the dismissed governments did not win the polls, and that, in fact, was seen to form the brief mandate of these appointed individuals. On other occasions the transition to the next set-up was directly presided over by Gen Zia in 1985 and Gen Musharraf in 2002.

Two occasions fall out of this pattern: 1977 and 2008. The general election of 1977 was the only one to be organised by a genuinely elected government. The Z.A. Bhutto-led ruling PPP returned with even bigger numbers. The winning party, however, could not survive rigging allegations, subsequent street agitation and palace intrigues. This sorry affair, capitalised on by the army generals, has been projected as an elected government’s inherent inability to produce a legitimate successor and preside over transition.

In the case of the 2008 polls, the establishment’s recipe for transition went wrong, with the caretaker government failing to take care of the interests of its appointing authorities. The transition slipped out of the hands of an authoritarian ruler and in fact was led by the electoral process itself. The change contemplated by the general (Musharraf) sitting in the most powerful of seats didn’t happen. He couldn’t get the party of his choice elected despite having all the state machinery at his command.

This episode should mark the end of the ‘utility’ of caretaker governments. If the failure of 1977 had necessitated a caretaker setup for ‘peaceful’ transition, the upset of 2008 has made it redundant. Don’t we need to improvise upon this wonderful development instead of labouring over how to make an interim set-up really neutral?

This may actually help us bury ghosts from the past. Legislative bodies in the colonial period were a mix of members elected through limited franchise and those handpicked by the Crown. The chosen ones obviously toed the official line and enough of them were stocked in the Houses to help the government meet any popular challenge. These appointees were projected by the Raj as efficient, non-partisan and conscientious; in contrast, those popularly elected were shown as incompetent, unprincipled and troublemakers. That was the colonial strategy to create and promote the perception that persons chosen by the people are inferior to those blessed by the rulers.

The perception was later kept alive, nurtured and used time and again by the authoritarian rulers of our country. The 20th Amendment sections dealing with the caretakers, though passed by a democratically elected parliament, is a sorry manifestation of the same mindset as it trusts an appointed caretaker set-up more than a democratically elected incumbent government besides creating confusion for the role of the caretakers and the ECP.

Legally speaking, the ECP is to preside over the machinery that administers elections and comprises the middle-rung bureaucracy assigned the task of returning officers, presiding officers and others performing security-related duties. The ‘neutral’ caretakers, appointed under the 20th Amendment, can at best ensure that the electoral machinery obeys the ECP. How much power can the caretakers, with a shelf life of just 60 days, wield over this old-hand bureaucracy? Isn’t it simpler and more sensible to make this bureaucracy directly subservient to the ECP instead of asking a temporary set-up to make it obey the ECP?

The ECP as a permanent institution is better placed to extract neutrality and efficiency from the bureaucracy than a naïve team of political apprentices. All it needs to do is to learn to assert itself. The recent case of the ECP disqualifying an MPA-elect is a good omen. The disqualified member belonged to the ruling PPP and the ECP needed no caretaker to make the decision.

The idea of neutral caretakers as a guarantee to a smooth change in government is inherently flawed. Neutrality can never be absolute and there always will be room for losers to blame their losses on the real or perceived bias of caretakers. If the ECP is really empowered over the machinery that administers elections, we don’t need to have a 60-day comic break between two elected governments. Elections can, in fact, be held two months before, instead of after, the expiry of the term of an elected House. An elected government passing on the reins to the next one is a sign of democratic maturity.

The writer works with Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and advocacy group that has a primary interest in understanding governance and democracy.

tahir.mehdi@lokpunjab.org
-Dawn