Shackling independents?

IT is really quite extraordinary that the government should have felt the need for issuing an ordinance late on Wednesday night, just hours before polling, laying down a time limit for winning independent candidates to join a political party. According to the ordinance, which amends the already controversial Legal Framework Order, it has been decreed that the “total number of general seats won by a political party shall include the independent returned candidates who may join such a political party within three days of the publication in the official gazette of the names of the returned candidates”. What is the import of this latest gem of legal wisdom? Will all independent candidates be expected to join one or another political party? The ordinance uses the phrase “may join”, which means that it will be up to the candidates concerned whether they want to give up their independent status and become members of a political party. They may not thus be under any compulsion to abdicate their independence unless they wish to do so. This point still needs to be clarified, but even if the intention is not to totally wipe out the category of independent candidates, why give them just three days to make up their minds? Why this great hurry?

As of polling day, there were over 3,000 candidates contesting national and provincial assembly seats as independents, including those with the crescent as their common election symbol, who are widely believed to be the administration’s or the PML(Q)’s ‘B’ team. If the PML(Q) is unable to muster a working majority, it might need the help, among others, of the independents who get elected. This may be just a conjecture, but the new ordinance could be seen as an attempt to pressure or lure independents into quickly making up their minds whether they want to be with the establishment or not and before they are approached by other parties. Independents do not necessarily have to join a political party to support its policies in parliament, but by joining, they will be more in a parliamentary lock-box and will not find it easy to switch loyalties. It will be easier to have, in terms of numbers, a fait accompli in place before other parties with sizable strength in the National Assembly stake claims to forming a government and get into the horse-trading fray over buying the loyalty of the independents.

While trying to figure out the motive behind the latest of the government edicts, one thing seems certain: it will be criticized as one more step in the direction of rendering the field uneven for parties in opposition to the present stakeholders. It will have a longer-term effect by weakening rather than strengthening the role that independents can play in a parliamentary set-up. Our experience of independent candidates has not been a very happy one. They have often been up for sale to the highest bidder, and those from the tribal areas have almost always sided with the government of the day. But if some of them can preserve their independence, they may possibly be the nation’s liberal conscience, speaking out fearlessly in a situation of acute polarization between the government and the opposition. Sadly, even in the midst of our first effort in five years to have an elected government, we seek to whittle away at democratic institutions while paying lip-service to democracy. In any case, there is hardly any justification for an administration on its way out to decree new laws or amend the existing ones.

Past the critical post

BY the time these lines appear in print, a broad picture of the way the nation voted will have emerged. It was good to stand once again in line at the polling station to exercise one’s franchise: one got at least a whiff or two of democracy in the air. All said and done, the nation had gone to vote after five years, which in any case is the National Assembly’s tenure laid down in the Constitution. The three previous elections came within 20 months to three years — 1990, 1993 and 1997. Those in 1988 were held after 11 long years by the man who had given a solemn oath to the nation to hold elections and transfer power within 90 days. That way, General Musharraf must be credited with abiding by his pledge and holding the promised elections within the time limit laid down by the Supreme Court.

The voter turn-out was relatively low and the noise and bustle characteristic of such occasions was largely missing but that was no measure of the people’s lack of commitment to democracy. They believe passionately in democracy: invariably, it is their leaders who have sacrificed it on the altar of power and greed, or have harmed it through misgovernance and corruption. For their part, the people watched in agony each time the Bonapartists stepped in to ditch democracy, promising to give a new “system” better suited to the country’s needs — only to prolong their rule. Yesterday again, the people went to the polling booths in the hope that democracy will henceforth blossom. Will the new leadership try to make a success of the new phase? The nation knows who calls the shots, and undeniably the generals have disfigured the Constitution. But this is exactly the challenge before the new leaders. They must work together to expand the parameters available to them and try to make a success of governance.

Better mental health facilities

PSYCHIATRISTS attending a moot on mental health in Karachi on Thursday expressed concern about the lack of mental health facilities and shortage of qualified psychiatrists in the country. Surprisingly, there are only four mental hospitals and psychiatric facilities in the country whose combined capacity is less than 2,100 beds, whereas the number of mentally ill patients is estimated to be 1.4 million — 10 per cent of the total population. If one were to include the number of people suffering from psychosomatic disorders and epilepsy and requiring psychiatric care, the estimated figure of mentally ill patients rises to a higher proportion of the total population. The number of trained psychiatrists in the country is only 350.

Another cause of concern for the psychiatrists is said to be the Mental Health Ordinance 2001, which has replaced the Lunacy Act of 1912. The new law gives the police discretionary powers to detain for 72 hours any individual on account of his or her state of mind before that individual is presented for a psychiatric evaluation at a government-run mental health facility. Given the inadequacy of mental health facilities in the country, this clause of the new law is not only impractical but is also detrimental to citizen’s rights as it leaves the law open to abuse by the police. While there is a pressing need to correct the anomalies in the said law, it is also time the health ministry looked into the wider problem: lack of psychiatric facilities, specialists and paramedics for the care and treatment of mentally ill patients. The government would do well to arrange for training of a greater number of psychiatrists in the country’s medical colleges, so that, over time, the number of psychiatric wards could also be increased in public hospitals.