90 Days --- The Sanctity of Time

The abrupt decision to vacate the NA was also a betrayal of the term-time entrusted to PTI by its voters. That term-time was 5 years, i.e. 2018-2023. Notwithstanding the lack of credibility in the decision in February-March 2022 of about 21 MNAs elected on PTI tickets to move away from the Treasury benches -- and of other allied-parties to also do so -- and despite the credibility of allegations that military intelligence agencies encouraged the split -- PTI had the irreducible responsibility to represent its voters for a full 5-year period, irrespective of being in power, or being voted out of office before the completion of its term. Overnight, the millions who had voted with sincerity and passion and hope for a new beginning, a Naya Pakistan, found that they had been returned to the Purana Pakistan, with silence in the NA added as a cruel bonus.

That the sudden walk-out from half of Parliament partly helped energize the street and rally-based mass movement for the next several months led by Imran Khan fails to justify the disregard for the time-frame of 5 years given to PTI. Whereas on the popular, and populist levels, the aggrieved stance which accused “traitors, the USA and the establishment” of unjustly depriving PTI of its electoral mandate injected a new activism and mass awareness, and made the protests unusually candid and robust, in actual, functional terms, PTI’s absence from the Assembly strengthened the conventional structures of power. Be they the Police, NAB, the bureaucracy, the Army, the agencies, virtually all State instruments -- except the superior Judiciary --- all were deployed against the ousted party and its leaders. Continuation in power in Punjab -- precariously, erratically until the Assembly’s own dissolution in February 2023 -- and in KP, till its own Assembly’s dissolution as well, did little to off-set the abiding strength of the Federal system.

Walking away from the time-term given by the people also enabled the unchallenged passage of several legislative Acts by the PDM. And the ultimate proof of the folly came when the PTI decided --- so far, unsuccessfully --- to withdraw the resignations and return to the Assemblies.

PDM’s and ECP’s transgressions:
Yet none of the above detracts from the brazen, wilful evasion of respect for the Constitution’s time-frames displayed by the PDM Government on the election date issue. Unfortunately, an Election Commission --- despite the sharp invective hurled against it by the PTI --- which had conducted reasonably free and fair polling in bye-elections in which the PTI leader decisively won in most seats across Provinces --- also colluded with the PDM Government in offering pretexts for not holding polls on due dates.

Ambivalences:
While the strange tendency of the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice to form Benches that exclude the next Chief Justice-in-waiting along with certain other Judges, and his refusal to form a full Bench to hear an exceptionally important matter is deeply unsettling, he and his colleagues on the relevant Bench deserve enormous credit for affording unflinching respect for time-frames explicitly defined in the Constitution. He rightly rejects the attempt by some PDM spokespersons to also use Article 254 of the Constitution to justify the delayed poll date of 8th October 2023 for the two Provincial Assemblies. That Article is meant to condone only procedural lapses or force majeure-type situations, not the deliberate avoidance of a substantive, essential duty. For the record, Article 254 condones only a “failure to comply with a requirement as to time... “to allow for unavoidable functional hitches and hurdles.

Time-distortions in history:
Our 75-year history is marked by at least six major examples in which disregard for time and dates and commitments already made led to wounding distortions and downward spirals. Travelling back in the time-tunnel illuminates them all. General Pervez Musharraf’s unwillingness to retire after the 3-year time-limit given to him by the Supreme Court in May 2000 and to then use a dubious referendum in 2002 to prolong his rule reinforced the military’s longevity in politics and damaged timely restoration of democratic progress despite several positive accomplishments before 2007.

General Zia-ul-Haq’s infamous promise in July 1977 of elections within 90 days became over 4,000 days without party-based elections and dark regression in many fields. General Yahya Khan’s last-minute decision to postpone the first session of the newly-elected National Assembly set for 1st March 1971 without giving a new date (which came only on 6th March for the last week of March 1971) shattered trust forever in East Pakistan. That fatal step eventually led to disintegration and to Bangladesh. The inverse is also notable. Instead of waiting till 1978 when the next elections were due, Z. A. Bhutto ill-advisedly moved the date forward to March 1977. If he had not done so, the outcome could well have been different, given the imponderability of several variable factors, national and regionally geopolitical.

Iskander Mirza’s terrible decision to ignore the prospect of elections scheduled for early 1959 and to abrogate the 1956 Constitution on 7th October 1958 was accompanied by the imposition of martial law and the overt intrusion of the military into politics, a phenomenon that endures in various forms over 60 years later. The Constituent Assembly’s failure to formulate a Constitution on its first few years became an excuse for its dissolution in October 1954 by Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad. That act ruptured the democratic evolution of a Constitutional framework and fortified the authoritarian element in the body politic. Even if the Assembly had not met frequently enough for seven years to formulate a Constitution, its arbitrary dissolution did not produce a sustained democratic solution.

Waiting overtime:
In 2023, more than ever before, all institutions of the State, and all those individuals who hold public office should demonstrate humility, restraint and profound respect for the time-frames and fundamental rights prescribed by the Constitution. That peasant-woman and that cart-puller, illiterate, uneducated, poor, malnourished though they are, nevertheless possess great dignity. They know the infinite value of time and the inescapable duty to fulfil promises, verbal as well as written. They too are watching, working, and waiting.