LAHORE:
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) may have agreed to form a government in Gilgit-Baltistan and finalized a power-sharing formula, but the PML-N’s decision to sit on the opposition benches while supporting the government has drawn criticism from leading political analysts, who described the arrangement as a bizarre norm and a bizarre norm by Parliament.
Former caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Hasan Askari Rizvi said that a leader of the opposition belonging to the government is akin to making a mockery of the parliamentary system.
“This is a personal rule, though there is no authority to check such distortions. It is interesting that the three major players in GB are allies in the central government in Islamabad. That says it all about this current hybrid system.”
Commenting on the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP), Rizvi noted that despite failing to win a single seat in Gilgit-Baltistan, the party effectively won five seats after independent candidates joined its ranks.
He said the gift of mandates should not be over-interpreted as the party was unlikely to receive similar political gains elsewhere in the country.
Independents joining a relatively unknown party at a time when both the ruling party and one of its key allies were fully active in the electoral field was, in his view, an extremely rare occurrence and virtually unprecedented in Pakistani politics.
Senior journalist and political commentator Mazhar Hussain said that when the ruling alliance itself does not hide the hybrid nature of the system, no political development, however unusual, should come as a surprise.
“Democracy exists in name only”
Recalling the political developments of 1992, he said that Muzaffar Hussain Shah became the Chief Minister of Sindh despite the fact that the PPP had the majority, followed by the MQM.
“He was interesting enough from neither.”
He argued that discussion of democratic norms and ethics had become largely meaningless.
“We have political parties, elections and parliament, but no democracy.”
Regarding the IPP, Hussain said he believed the party had been allotted these seats by the powers that be as a counterweight to the PPP.
“Ensuring that the PPP works according to their whims, in case of a different situation, an alliance with the remaining parties to bring in a new government is a threat that they have left hanging in the PPP’s head.”
Political scientist and Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) president Ahmad Bilal Mehboob said the PML-N’s decision to occupy the opposition benches effectively disenfranchises genuine opposition members as its alliance with the government also makes it a partner in the incoming administration.
He noted that such situations can arise in democracies, although they remain politically contentious.
Commenting on the IPP, Mehboob said that so-called “royalist parties” have historically enjoyed such political advantages, adding that there was nothing particularly surprising about the developments in countries like Pakistan.
He said the political windfall would boost the IPP’s stature across the country and demonstrated that the party continues to enjoy relevance within influential power circles.
