The election of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as Prime Minister of Pakistan concluded without hindrance yesterday in Islamabad and the country finally was once again with a chief executive after more than 4 days.
However, in the time from Friday at nearly 12 noon when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from office to the afternoon of Tuesday when the session of the house called by President Mamnoon Hussain voted for the election of a new premier, there remained some confusion amongst the public about who exactly was in charge.
On the ground and according to Constitutional lawyers and experts speaking to Pakistan Today, the person in charge of the everyday affairs of the country was the Head of State, President Mamnoon Hussain.
In such a situation as the country faced for 4 days, any unlikely scenarios such as wars or natural calamities would be handled by President Mamnoon Hussain. Unlike the succession systems of Presidential democracies, such as in the United States, where a detailed list of successors is set out, parliamentary democracies vary more as to such procedure.
Usually, in normal circumstances when the Prime Minister is out of the country or is not in touch with his cabinet, the role of acting Prime Minister is taken up by the Speaker of the House. In other situations, if a so called ‘Senior Minister’ is appointed in the Cabinet, as was done in the previous PPP government when PM Yusuf Raza Gillani was dismissed, that designated Minister takes up the charge of acting PM.
The office of Deputy Prime Minister held by Pervez Elahi after the ouster of Gillani has since his term been vacant, and thus that too could not be used as a backup.
But what with the Prime Minister not appointing a Senior Minister and the Speaker of the House not taking up the charge in abnormal circumstances, the Cabinet was dissolved along with the Prime Minister. The legal and parliamentary reasoning for this is that the different ministries that the Cabinet is comprised off are all extensions of the Prime Minister in whom power is vested by the trust of the National Assembly. Along with the Prime Minister and his cabinets, all advisors and special assistants too are left without a job.
Where this happens, as did happen after Mian Nawaz’s disqualification, the President of the Federation along with the Secretaries to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet run the affairs of the country. The secretaries, who are bureaucrats, are there to advise the President who is bound to call a session of the national assembly with minimum delay.
