Part-One
“While we all hope for peace it shouldn’t be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice” Corazon C. Aquino
Background
Pakistan and Afghanistan never enjoyed friendly relations since the latter didn’t accept the Durand Line as an international border and laid claims over Pashtun inhabited areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. Afghanistan has traditionally remained close to India and hostile towards Pakistan. Relations dipped during the rule of President Daud after he seized power in 1973 from King Zahir Shah. Insurgents in Baluchistan were provided safe havens and Pakhtunistan movement was fueled.
When Afghanistan was occupied by Soviet forces in December 1979, and 4 million Afghans became refugees in Pakistan, Pakistan under Gen Ziaul Haq condemned the invasion and decided to support the Afghan resistance forces. The US and Saudi Arabia came in support of Pakistan
In its current form, Article 226 of the Constitution explicitly provides for secret ballot
On February 6, the president of Pakistan promulgated the Elections Ordinance, 2021. This amendment aims is to make provincial legislators vote by a show of hands in the Senate elections, rather than through secret ballot as mandated by Article 226 of the Constitution. Whether such a change is permissible is a legal question pending before the Supreme Court. A pertinent question in this regard is whether the people desire such a change in the election process for the Senate?
John Stuart Mill, in
Considerations on Representative Government, famously stated that a vote is a trust in the consideration of public good, rather than a right to do as one wishes. Mill contended that secrecy should be the exception, not the rule, because without publicity, it can be hard to achieve accountability. Secret ballots were introduced in general elections to avoid coercion, intimidation and bribery. The sec
The writer is an author, and a former senator and federal minister.
THE 2021 buzz about the Senate evokes recall about the 1985 Senate with particular reference to alleged or actual costs for election.
Around mid-February 1985, my far better half Shabnam persuaded me to believe that one was eligible for election to the Senate as a technocrat on a reserved seat. Like elections for the new National Assembly and provincial assemblies held earlier the same month, Senate polls would also be on a non-party basis. But at least three parties unofficially participated JI, JUI and the Pagara Muslim League. All other major parties boycotted the polls held under martial law and the continued rule of Gen Ziaul Haq (later, even senior PPP leaders regretted the boycott). Within three years, non-party-based legislatures unsettled the military ruler to the extent he was panicked into dissolving them in May 1988.
Fall of political morality
February 17, 2021
A larger question today is not who will be elected to the 51 seats of the Senate or which party would get a majority in the Upper House of the Parliament on March 2, but how some of them would become senators? Will they get into the House on merit or through corrupt and immoral practices which in the past many years have gripped our system?
The journey for a democratic Pakistan has never been easy since its independence 73 years back. Unfortunately, democracy became the first casualty in the country which was formed after a long democratic struggle led by the founder, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who was a firm believer of high democratic values.
Fall of political morality
February 16, 2021
A larger question today is not who will be elected to the 51 seats of the Senate or which party would get a majority in the Upper House of the Parliament on March 2, but how some of them would become senators? Will they get into the House on merit or through corrupt and immoral practices which in the past many years have gripped our system?
The journey for a democratic Pakistan has never been easy since its independence 73 years back. Unfortunately, democracy became the first casualty in the country which was formed after a long democratic struggle led by the founder, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who was a firm believer of high democratic values.