EDITORIAL: If the recent constitutional crisis in the centre and the ongoing, much worse one in Punjab weren’t enough, now there’s one in Balochistan as well. And there’s plenty of drama around this one also.
Because the knife that Chief Minister Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo helped plant in his predecessor Jam Kamal Khan Alyani’s back just seven months ago, when Alyani chose to fall on it rather than face a no-confidence motion, is now thrust in his own back by Alyani himself in classic tribal-political style payback.
They cited corruption, bad governance and all that when PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) parliamentary leader Sardar Yar Mohammad Rind filed the no-confidence motion against Bizenjo, of course, but rumours has it that former CM Alyani might have been able to exploit some discontent among MPAs (members of provincial assembly) who thought they hadn’t been given the right ministries.
And from there the usual circus-like nature of the house took on a life of its own and soon enough there were enough signatures to file the motion.
This makes for a very curious situation; especially since it comes on the heels of the recent Supreme Court observation about Article 63-A of the constitution. The motion will need the consent of dissenting MPAs to succeed, but since Alyani calls the shots it’s likely to be fair game this time.
Still, you can count on this development to cause some confusion before it settles down. Unless, of course, Bizenjo takes a leaf out of Alyani’s book and accepts the writing on the wall before it has to get to the embarrassment of the vote. Either way, little is going to change for the Baloch people.
And this round of musical chairs in their corridors of power goes to show, yet again, how far removed the concerns of those governing that province are from the issues of their constituents.
It stands out as a rather obvious fact that whenever since 1973 Balochistan has had the privilege of a democratic government it’s almost always been dominated by tribal chiefs and feudal lords. And more often than not it’s disagreements about who gets how much of the pie that cause heads to roll at the top; not things like how well, or otherwise, they did their jobs.
Little surprise, then, that Balochistan remains the least developed of all provinces in the federation. And it’s very difficult to see how this latest attempt to change the chief minister is going to improve anything for anybody, except the people that land ministries and development funds because of it.
On top of everything else, this confusion is sure to be leveraged by political forces agitating for a snap election, as further proof that the system is not working anywhere. But that only brings us back to the dilemma that representative government has not really done much for people in some parts of the country.
Let’s not forget that with its security issues, sectarian issues, poverty issues, etc., Balochistan is quite the powder keg. And it’s a crying shame that those that fight to run it have no qualms whatsoever about risking lighting it up whenever they don’t get what they want. These issues, more than toxic hatred, ought to form the gist of the evolving national debate about democracy and the issues we have with it.
Balochistan is also the centrepiece of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), so there’s no way it can afford the kind of paralysis that has gripped Punjab for two months. Everything must be done to make sure that it has a legal, working government that can take decisions with proper mandate at all times.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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