Leaderless province

For almost a month now, the most populous province in the country has been trudging along without anyone at the helm. The problem arose after the resignation of former Punjab chief minister Usman Buzdar. On April 16, Hamza Shehbaz was elected as chief minister with 197 votes, including at least 22 votes from PTI dissidents. He has not been able to take oath since then. Eventually, the Lahore High Court order had directed the Punjab governor to either administer the oath to Hamza himself or appoint a nominee for the constitutional duty. That too did not happen, and instead the Punjab Assembly session yesterday was also adjourned once again, this time till May 16. Speaker of the Punjab Assembly Pervaiz Elahi has said that Hamza’s election was void and has already been challenged in court. The governor also seems adamant on not heeding the court's decision.

This situation is virtually unprecedented even in the history of a country where we have seen all sorts of shenanigans in assemblies, and attempts to disregard basic constitutional provisions. The failure to elect a chief minister or to allow the person who has gathered the largest number of votes in the assembly to take office goes against democratic principles. Essentially, a terrible precedent has been set and Punjab is effectively facing constitutional chaos. In the meanwhile, the PTI and the Election Commission of Pakistan are in a state of constant discord, with Imran Khan lashing out against the election commissioner he had appointed himself, terming the ECP both corrupt and incompetent. The continuous attacks on the CEC by the PTI are uncalled for and also set a dangerous precedent -- a party trying to bully the ECP into a favourable verdict, both in the case of Article 63-A on dissident parliamentarians and the foreign funding case. The irony is that this is a party that talks about transparency, accountability, and justice but is openly trying to use these tactics to delay the justice process.

It is unacceptable that Punjab is still without a chief executive. It is unacceptable that the PTI and the PML-Q have brought things to such a pass that the entire province is losing out on democracy. And it is disturbing how the failure to maintain the spirit of the constitution and of democracy and such deliberate sabotage of the oath-taking of a new chief minister has set a new low in just how little the constitution means to these parties, and highlights to what lengths the PTI and PML-Q will go to keep power with them. There has also been talk of the government preparing a reference to apply Article 6 on President Arif Alvi, the governor of Punjab, former PM Imran Khan and former deputy speaker Qasim Suri. This is a dangerous path to tread but one that may be used as a threat for the president and governor to do their constitutional duties. We hope that things do not come to this in an already polarized nation.