THE national sentiment seems to be strongly opposed to the continuation of the current constitutional arrangement of appointing caretaker governments at the federal and provincial level when the legislatures are dissolved for holding elections.

This is perhaps partly due to the fact that the most recent caretaker governments lasted much longer than mandated by the Constitution. A spirited debate has taken place on the subject in the Senate recently, in which various senators demanded that the caretaker government system be dispensed with and elected governments continue during elections with reduced powers. Many other political leaders and civil society organisations have voiced similar demands.

The rationale of caretaker governments can be traced to 1977 when the first general election after the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution took place. The original 1973 Constitution had not envisaged a caretaker government and therefore the government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto continued during the election period.

Unfortunately, the 1977 general election turned out to be one of the most rigged, if not the most rigged, general election in Pakistan’s history and the entire blame for the gross irregularities and blatant rigging was laid at the door of the government of the time.

The rigged polls were followed by widespread street agitation leading to violence and the breakdown of law and order in the entire country, which eventually culminated in the declaration of martial law and the takeover of the government by the armed forces. When prime minister Bhutto was holding talks with the agitating opposition shortly before martial law was imposed, he had reportedly agreed to a re-election.

But the major point of contention was who should head the government during the polls. It was also reported that both the Bhutto government and the opposition had almost agreed on a bipartisan ‘Supreme Council’, represented equally by the ruling PPP and the opposition parties, to supervise the re-election. Some basic modalities for the proposed council were reportedly agreed to during the dialogue.

When Gen Ziaul Haq took over the government in 1977 and initially considered holding new elections within three months, the blueprint of the proposed council came to his knowledge. After repeatedly deferring elections, when he ultimately decided to hold non-party-based polls in 1985, the idea of a ‘Supreme Council’ during election evolved into a caretaker government, which he initially incorporated in the Revival of Constitution Order (RCO), 1985.

It later found its place in the Constitution. Article 48(5)(b) of the Constitution then stated that when the president dissolves the National Assembly, he shall, in his discretion, appoint a caretaker cabinet. The constitutional provisions regarding caretaker governments evolved over time but these find their genesis in the deep mistrust between the government and the opposition.

Any decision to replace the caretaker set-up with another system must involve careful thinking.

Sadly, the gulf between the government and opposition has widened over time. It is difficult to say whether relations between the two were worse in 1977 or today. At least, despite deep mistrust, both the government led by PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the opposition alliance, the PNA, headed by Mufti Mehmood, had agreed to sit down for a structured dialogue spanning many weeks in 1977.

Today, Mr Imran Khan, who controls the most popular political party, the PTI, refuses to even shake hands, let alone hold a dialogue, with the leaders of the two other large political parties, the PML-N and PPP. Mr Khan is willing, rather keen, to hold a dialogue with the establishment, whom he had repeatedly blamed for his ouster from government in 2022; however, he is not ready to talk to his political opponents. With this state of relations between the government and the opposition, can we imagine the government continuing during the next election and the opposition accepting the arrangement?

Despite the fact that four of the past seven caretaker prime ministers — from Mr Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi of IJI in 1990 to Mr Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar of BAP in 2023 — were manifestly partisan and that the presence of none of the past eight caretaker governments has contributed to making the election acceptable to all contending political parties, the decision to scrap the caretaker government and replace it with a more credible system needs to be taken after a lot of careful thinking.

It is true that Bangladesh had wound up its system of caretaker governments in 2011 after experimenting with it for 15 years, but the resulting system is not acceptable to all political parties there. In the most recent parliamentary election in Bangladesh held in January this year, the largest opposition party, the BNP, and its allies boycotted the election because they did not trust the Awami League government and had demanded a caretaker government to supervise the election.

India is a good example to follow as it never incorporated the system of caretaker governments in its electoral system in the past 17 elections and yet its elections have been largely accepted by almost all political parties. With the growing confrontation between the BJP and the opposition, there are signs that questions may be raised about the future elections. Recently, a rather minor election for the mayor of Chandigarh pointed to the fault lines when the presiding officer defaced the ballots to help the BJP candidate. However, the supreme court intervened and the BJP’s victory was reversed.

Despite this apparently isolated incident, Indian elections have evolved into a credible system over time. Although India’s election commission is not appointed through a bipartisan process as in Pakistan and doesn’t enjoy more powers than its Pakistani counterpart, it has emerged as a powerful institution which becomes a de facto government during elections. The level of public trust in the ECP has yet to reach that level.

In normal circumstances, it would make a lot of sense to abolish the caretaker government system in Pakistan but a very prudent analysis of the situation needs to be undertaken by parliament before a decision, preferably a bipartisan one, is taken.

The writer is president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency.

X: @ABMPildat

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2024