What
will a presidential system change?
Shakir Lakhani
MAY 1, 2019
When you are in a great hurry to transform a nation of beggars
into a highly developed welfare state, no one is surprised if you fail. It has
taken decades for China and the rich nations of the West to become what they
are today. Our Dear Leader should have realised this by now, but the way he
does things, we’ll never know if he acts on the advice of his known confidants
or gets his orders from somewhere else. Particularly disturbing is the sacking
of his chosen successor, the former finance minister, and making the former
information minister, a lawyer, the minister of science and technology. How far
can you trust a man with scientific knowledge after he has claimed that a
helicopter uses only 55 rupees worth of fuel for every kilometre it flies?
As
for the former finance minister – whom the Great Khan praised to the skies only
a day before kicking him out – one has to admire the grace with which he
conducted himself. Despite the humiliation he had to bear he was all praise for
his leader who would pronounce the very next day that only those who were not
beneficial to the country had been asked to leave. The former finance wizard
must really be thick-skinned. But then if you desperately want power you have
to be prepared to endure everything.
We have been there before. Ayub Khan was the first one to try
his hand at it. His 1962 Constitution had an electoral college of only 80,000
voters, known as the Basic Democrats, for a population of 80,000,000, including
East Pakistan, about which most of the Great Khan’s brainwashed followers have
not heard or read about. Lest we forget, we lost half the country under a
presidential rule. It was easy to rig elections then, as a majority of the
80,000 voters could easily be bribed or coerced to vote for the man in power,
as happened in the heavily rigged 1965 elections in which Ayub Khan defeated
Fatima Jinnah by a landslide.
What
PTI lovers don’t understand is that it doesn’t matter whether we have a
parliamentary system or a presidential one, the country’s problems will always
remain, unless the leadership is tough, honest and incorruptible. Ayub Khan was
very popular during the first couple of years in power, as many law-breakers,
including smugglers, were caught and punished. Later, as he grew older and
weaker, corruption again became the norm. One fine day, sugar suddenly
disappeared from the market and the people came out in the streets demanding
his resignation. Ayub Khan couldn’t believe that the people hated him so much.
Needless
to say, this is what happens when a ruler only listens to his yes-men, who tell
him every day that the situation in the county is firmly under control and
people are happy under his rule. They sound a lot like they have been
brainwashed but maybe it is just that they are impressed with the performance
of some countries where one-man rule has proved effective. They ignore the fact
that governments in these countries entertain no idea of human rights. Is it a
coincidence that some of them also believe that Pakistan is on the verge of becoming
a big oil exporter?
Even
if oil is discovered in the sea near our shores, the country will not become
rich overnight. It will take five years at least before the crude can be
refined and foreign exchange earned for the country. The Great Khan and his
ministers are convinced that huge reserves of oil and gas are out there in the
sea near Karachi. One of them has said that soon there would be so many jobs (a
billion?) available in the country there wouldn’t be enough applicants to fill
the vacancies. By the way, one wonders what happened to him. He wasn’t among
those whom the Dear Leader sacked or transferred.
So the Great Khan is in a tough situation today. He is hesitant
to take action against the corrupt elements in his own party being heavily
dependent on them to stay in power. It is evident that his government will not
be able to change anything. The promised tabdeeli (change) is nowhere in sight,
and will not happen even if the presidential system is adopted. As the past
eight months have proved, whether he is made president or not, the Great Khan
cannot succeed unless he goes after the looters, smugglers and tax-evaders,
even those who are in his own party.
The writer is a freelancer
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