TO address the enormous political, economic, security and social challenges that confront the country, a strong federal government with a clear electoral mandate is surely needed. But it is not apparent that what the country needs and deserves it will get on July 25. Imran Khan’s candid admission that no party may win a majority in the election and exhortation to the public to turn out and vote, reinforce independent election analyses and political opinion that a hung parliament remains a possibility. That would be an unfortunate outcome. The Constitution does ensure that a prime minister will be elected by the next parliament. Article 91(2) requires the National Assembly to be convened by the president 21 days after a general election. The new assembly must first elect a speaker and then, to the exclusion of all other business, vote to elect a prime minister.

Article 91(4) of the Constitution sets out a clear procedure in case no candidate wins a majority vote of the total membership of the National Assembly: “...if no member secures such majority in the first poll, a second poll shall be held between the members who secure the two highest numbers of votes in the first poll and the member who secures a majority of votes of the members present and voting shall be declared to have been elected as prime minister”. But electing a prime minister, as the Constitution guarantees, does not guarantee a stable government. Certainly, the existing split in the upper house of parliament ensures that at least legislatively, the next federal government, whether comprising of a single party or several parties, will necessarily need to reach out across the aisle. But the National Assembly is critical because it alone determines who is elected prime minister and votes on the annual finance bill.

A coalition government would not be new in this latest era of elected governments. From 2008 to 2013, the PPP led a coalition of several parties. That coalition survived the short-lived experiment of a national government when the PML-N withdrew its support and opted to sit in opposition after a few weeks of uneasy power sharing with the PPP. In the 2013 campaign, the PML-N’s strategy of focusing primarily on Punjab kept alive the possibility of no one party winning a majority in the National Assembly. But a coalition government in 2018 would face very different challenges. Political controversies and widespread allegations of electoral meddling have cast a shadow over the pre-poll phase. The PTI, PPP and PML-N may well be the three largest parties in parliament and there is no likely combination of those parties that can produce a government, let alone a stable, well-functioning one. Two of the three largest parties in parliament sitting in the opposition is also unlikely to promote stability. A significant voter turnout, regardless of the result, could help mitigate uncertainty. Please vote.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2018