Who is to blame?
No government likes it when the opposition, or someone else, tells it what to do. But this one’s been particularly cross about periodic allegations that, owing to its inability or unwillingness, it yields important decision-making space to other institutions. Often enough it calls such charges attacks on democracy itself. For example, implications that foreign and security portfolios might be in the hands of the military are, according to PML-N, attempts to drive a wedge between the government and the army. And questioning the lack of a full-time foreign minister and lack of Islamabad’s initiative in the counterinsurgency policy is, of course, undermining democracy.
But what about instances when official inaction is incomprehensible and the government does not bother to explain its position? The matter of the non-functional Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), for example. Why has the government not taken the trouble to appoint ECP members so far? Why must it allow a deadlock to develop? Since the appointment of previous members took a good 14 months, should they not have begun the process a little ahead of time this time, instead of waiting till the serving members retired, and then be reminded?
It seems the government has developed a habit of being prompted about its responsibilities. Perhaps it is waiting for the Supreme Court to take note of this procrastination; just like it had to be arm-dragged into the local body polls. Or perhaps, just like foreign and security policy, it feels more institutions need the discipline of the brass. Otherwise the Speaker of the National Assembly would have acted last week, even if nobody else bothered, after the parliamentary affairs ministry wrote to him for constitution of a committee to appoint ECP members. If this episode deteriorates any further, the government will have only itself to blame.