Pakistan debates its provinces

ADDRESSING the Pakistan Economic Summit in Islamabad on July 30, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the present system of governance had collapsed and was fundamentally incapable of resolving the country's problems. He urged all political parties to sort out the matter, including the issue of creating more administrative units quickly, as it was the only way to bring facilities closer to citizens. A new leadership was needed, Naqvi argued, holding that the country's youth wanted justice, merit and jobs. He warned that unless a structural change happened, the same debates would continue for decades.A day later, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Director General, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), held a long press conference where he endorsed this need for an administrative reset to ensure good governance. But he did qualify that any such change must be carried out through constitutional and legal means and in accordance with the will of the people.This is an obvious trial balloon, blessed by an impatient army leadership, which wants to pre-empt any possible public discontent reaching the streets elsewhere in the mainland after having faced a difficulty in containing the uprising in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. It was worried especially in view of the economic malaise showing no signs of improvement.The army may ultimately be wanting to move towards a presidential form of government, which could also lead to the undoing of the 18th amendment on the devolution of financial autonomy to the provinces. This would possibly be the agenda of the rumoured 28th and 29th amendments, likely to brought in over the next six to eight months.Predictably, the two mainstream political parties in the ruling civilian coalition — the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP) — have not taken kindly to the possibility of a disruption of their provincial fiefdoms, despite being told that the military establishment may not wait beyond six months for initiating the threatened changes.The PML (N)'s adviser on political affairs, Rana Sanaullah, observed, tongue in cheek, that the system failure which was being bandied so casually was a parliamentary democratic mechanism bestowed by no less a person than the Quaid-e-Azam, Mohd Ali Jinnah. It was "achieved as a result of political struggle." Without naming Naqvi, he added that someone had just "covered a 30-year journey in three and a half years."Not to be left behind, the PPP's former Senate chairman, Mian Raza Rabbani, observed that this proposal had stirred a hornet's nest and a debate on the subject would extenuate the internal fault lines, strengthening terrorist movements in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other federating units.Discussions in Pakistani media as well as blogs of dissidents abroad point towards smaller unit bifurcations affecting the existing provinces in the following manner: Punjab would be parcelled into five smaller units — Northern, Central, Southern Punjabs, Potohar and Bahawalpur; Sind into Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpur Khas, Larkana and Sukkur; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into Greater Peshawar, Malakand, Hazara and Dera Ismail Khan and Balochistan into Quetta, Makran ( present coastal areas/districts), Zhob and Kalat;Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is reported to have met brother Nawaz Sharif to find ways to either legally delay the matter or probe discreetly whether there is a likelihood of dissent within higher army echelons to the reign of Asim Munir. Once bitten twice shy, this may have caused a cautious Nawaz Sharif to hesitate coming out in the open himself as a professed champion of democracy.The Zardari clan seems equally perturbed. They would not like to shed control of the Greater Karachi milch cow, which would go to the Muttahida Quami Movement or an unstable Mohajir- Pashtun coalition if the proposed bifurcations come through. They could signal to the army leadership two conditions for supporting the changes — one, control of the Karachi province as Chief Minister and two, a possible elevation of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as Prime Minister.Neither of these two conditions may be easily acceptable to the army.The PPP would also want to cater to the Sindhi sentiment while renaming the bifurcated provinces. This may be easier for the army to accommodate, if the PPP decides to come on board.The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) appears to have been caught unprepared. Rudderless as their leaders have been in the recent past, their concerns have been focussed on Imran Khan's incarceration, rumours of his ill health and the establishment's determination to hold at bay judicial directives for regular access to him by his close relatives. They cannot hope that this administrative upheaval could be a precursor to Imran's release. Without his coming out, galvanising street dissent seems beyond their capacity.Another factor could be motivating the army leadership. Apart from projecting some diversionary fervour about new jobs in the administrative units, the possibility of having more three-star-level positions in the field could be held out to disgruntled army officers in the rank of major general. So far, the nine corps commands have been broadly contiguous to the provincial boundaries, though in Punjab, there are three attack corps with a larger operational compass - the 10 Corps, Rawalpindi, 1 Corps, Mangla and 2 Corps, Multan.If the plan for the bifurcation of provinces comes through, it is not clear whether the corps commanders would function as overall supremos or administrative overlords from behind the scenes or they would adjust to what would certainly emerge as a new, hitherto untested variant of Pakistan's many hybrid experiments.

Pakistan debates its provinces

Political parties are not open to the possibility of a disruption of their provincial fiefdom

Rana Banerji

Pakistan debates its provinces

Political parties are not open to the possibility of a disruption of their provincial fiefdom

Rana Banerji

Unlock Premium Insights in This Article