ECP to select caretaker PM

ISLAMABAD: After the stormy but contentious election to the top Senate slots, all eyes are now set on the next caretaker prime minister/chief ministers and the anticipated sweeping measures that these interim governments are likely to take to influence the general elections.

The possible target of such wide-ranging actions will be the losing party of the Upper House poll, and this is what is generally believed given the new political alignments that will have impact on the upcoming general elections. However, it may be quickly noted that in the past engineering and manipulation in the electoral process created dire consequences for Pakistan.

The caretakers will have a maximum of 60 days – June and July – during which the parliamentary election is to be held and transfer of power to the new government will take place. However, two months are a long period to take several decisions of far-reaching nature.

Considering the acrimony heightened by the Senate polls and clear drawing of battle lines between two sets of political forces – the PML-N and its allies pitched against all others - there is a little or no prospect that the parliamentary parties will arrive at consensuses on the stopgap premier and at least two chief ministers. The politicians’ failure will let the matter land in the lap of an unelected institution – the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) – for final selections of the key caretakers.

The only possibility of breakthrough and unanimity is that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) agrees to the opposition parties’ names for the federal and Punjab caretakers that it, however, is unlikely to do in the wake of its bitter experience in consenting to the nomination of the new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), recommended by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), sometime back.

Buoyed up with defeating their archrival, the PML-N, in the Senate election, the PPP and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will team up in picking the premier, federal and provincial caretakers to sideline the preferences of their adversary. In this scramble, they will also try to attract the support of the “independents” from Balochistan and other smaller parties that backed them in the Senate chairman poll in a bid to isolate the PML-N in this crucial process.

The ECP will spring into action only after the consultees – Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah to choose the caretaker premier, and incumbent chief ministers and opposition leaders in provincial assemblies to nominate interim chief ministers – fail to reach agreements, and the concerned bipartisan parliamentary committees are also unable to arrive at consensuses.

However, the ECP has no power to name anyone of its choice as the interim prime minister or chief minister. It has to make selection of the premier and chief ministers from amongst the four names each sent to it by the parliamentary committees, which had been forwarded to them by the consultees.

In view of the prevailing scenario in Balochistan especially after the Senate election preceded by the change of the chief minister, there is no hurdle in bringing in chief provincial caretaker of the choice of the winners, who will obviously be an opponent of the PML-N and will be ready to incapacitate it to even allow it to field its candidates in the upcoming election in the province.

A similar scenario will prevail in Sindh where there will be no hassle whatsoever to pick up the interim chief minister of the PPP’s preference. Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and opposition leader in the provincial assembly Khawaja Izharul Hassan, the two consultees, will conveniently reach consensus on a name for the top caretaker.

However, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is unexpected to see a smooth sailing because of the clashing interests of the consultees – PTI’s Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and opposition leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman of the Jamiate Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F). Therefore, the matter will end up in the ECP for decision.

Same will be the case in Punjab where it will not be less than a miracle if Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and PTI’s Mian Mehmoodur Rashid agree on one name. The ECP will have to come in. At the federal level, Abbasi and Khursheed Shah are also likely to consent to the caretaker prime minister, pushing the nomination to the ECP for decision.

Under Article 224A of the Constitution, in case the prime minister and the opposition leader do not agree on any person to be appointed as the caretaker premier within three days of the dissolution of the National Assembly, they shall forward two nominees each to a committee to be immediately constituted by the National Assembly Speaker comprising eight members of the outgoing lower house, or the Senate, or both, having equal representation from the treasury and the opposition, to be nominated by the premier and the opposition leader respectively.

In case a chief minister and opposition in the outgoing provincial assembly do not agree on any person to be appointed as the caretaker chief minister within three days of its dissolution, they shall forward two nominees each to a committee to be immediately constituted by the provincial speaker comprising six members of the outgoing assembly having equal representation from the treasury and the opposition, to be nominated by the two consultees respectively.

These committees shall finalise the names of the interim premier or chief ministers within three days. In case of their inability to decide the matter within this period, the names of the nominees shall be referred to the ECP for final decision within two days.