For political advantage: PM relies on ‘muk-mukka’ CoD but reference to charter not misconstrued

ISLAMABAD: For his political advantage, Prime Minister Imran Khan has now cited the 12-year-old Charter of Democracy (CoD), signed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). In the past, the prime minister has always contemptuously dismissed the CoD as a secret deal by the two parties to protect each other’s alleged corruption that amounted to little more than ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.

However, the reference to the Charter of Democracy is not entirely misplaced. The prime minister has said that the PML-N and PPP are now opposing an open ballot in the upcoming Senate elections while they had agreed to it in the CoD.

The Charter of Democracy was signed by Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in London on May 14, 2006.

The two leaders had vowed to follow it when either was voted to power. The charter was largely implemented through the eighteenth constitutional amendment, but some of its vital provisions had been ignored. Both sides later regularly accused each other of violating the charter.

Point 23 of the Charter of Democracy states that to prevent corruption and floor-crossing, all votes for the Senate and indirect seats will be by open identifiable ballot.

Those violating party discipline in the polls shall stand disqualified by a letter from the parliamentary party leader to the concerned Speaker or the Senate chairman with a copy to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for notification purposes within 14 days of its receipt, failing which it will be deemed to have been notified on the expiry of that period.

The two top politicians thus wanted to make it binding on the ECP to notify the disqualification of defectors on the basis of the parliamentary leader’s letter without any proceedings whatsoever on it.

The prime minister also said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan People’s Party and other opposition parties, which have formed the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), were trying to blackmail the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

However, the Charter of Democracy had vowed to replace the “politically motivated NAB with an independent accountability commission, whose chairman shall be nominated by the prime minister in consultation with the leader of opposition and confirmed by a joint parliamentary committee with 50pc members each from the treasury and opposition benches in the same manner as the appointment of judges through a transparent public hearing.

The confirmed nominee shall meet the standard of political impartiality, judicial propriety, and moderate views expressed through his judgments.”

The Charter of Democracy also said that the accountability of the National Accountability Bureau will be done; and other accountability operators will be identified and held accountable for abuse of office through perjury and perversion of justice and violation of human rights since its establishment.

It further said a truth and reconciliation commission will be established to acknowledge victims of politically motivated accountability, targeted legislation, torture, imprisonment, and state-sponsored persecution.

The commission will also examine and report on its findings on military coups and the removal of civilian governments from 1996.

However, both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party failed to implement these far-reaching points of the Charter of Democracy during ten years of their governments.

Today, they are suffering because of this failure. Badly cornered by the unending NAB actions, they now want to abolish the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, introduced by Pervez Musharraf’s military regime, but the present government has vigorously spurned all such suggestions.