At a time when the government appears willing for undertaking electoral reforms, leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Shah, has called for reducing the government’s term from the existing five to four years. He asserts: "Reducing the tenure to four years will resolve all issues."

However, any change in the government’s tenure would require a constitutional amendment. And constitutional amendments can be effected only with two-third majority in separate sittings of both the Houses of Parliament, i.e. the National Assembly and the Senate. Recently, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has stated that the PML-N has no objection to reducing the tenure of the government from five to four years, if there was consensus.

Shah’s proposal to reducing the tenure of legislative assemblies from five to four years appears to be a step in the right direction for a country which faces innumerable problems (like acute energy crisis, persistent inflation, terrorism, deteriorating law and order situation, unemployment, population explosion, corruption, poverty, etc.). When these problems remain unsolved for a long time, a segment of the society becomes disillusioned with the ruling party and starts looking towards individuals who promise to turn the country into utopia, if returned to power. On a call from those individuals, the people, sometimes, resort to agitation and demonstrations.

Those politicians and political groups, who cannot return to power through elections, start creating problems for the government, with the avowed objective to overthrow it. Experience tells that their agitations and anti-government activities keep the political governments weak vis-a-viz the establishment. Sometimes through their nefarious designs, these elements succeed in derailing the system. It is high time the opposition learnt a lesson and refrained from activities aimed at reaching the power corridors even at the cost of derailing the system.

Some quarters led by mercurial or hysterical people want the current political setup to be replaced by a government of technocrats on the pretext that the present system was not delivering. Cognizant of the inherent dangers, Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pakhthunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) has warned these groups that if any attempt was made to tamper with the present system and "if we also did not adopt the right attitudes, then the present Parliament would be Pakistan’s last."

If politicians, whether in the opposition or in the government, want to lead the nation from the front and not to be led by the powerful establishment, they need to create unity in their ranks and strictly follow a code of political ethics that the major shareholders may develop through consensus. Division in their ranks will keep the political system vulnerable. Jokers and stooges that often appear on the stage between two acts of a play have already started appearing on the political stage, trying to create problems for the government and paving way for the powerful detractors.

In the developed democracies, opposition remains engaged in holding the ruling party accountable through oversight procedures or offering the public with an alternate set of policies. But, in Pakistan some of the opposition parties have often hindered the democracy instead.

Here, in the post-election period, some opposition parties do not easily consent to the electoral results. Losing parties invariably take to the streets, protesting the legitimacy of the elections. Not only this trend, formation of ‘grand alliances’ by political have-nots to topple the government, sit-ins, long marches and mobilizing voter sentiments on non-policy issues also needs to be discouraged.

It is, however, felt that a shorter tenure may dry-up for the politics of agitations as the people would spend their energies on elections in the first year, and would like to spend the remaining period in ‘just wait-and-see’ syndrome. If people become disillusioned with a ruling party, even then instead of agitation they may tend to wait for the completion of term, in the hope that when elections are held they would de-seat the non-performing party through the might of ballot paper.

However, to keep people mentally busy, it would be advisable to hold local body and mayoral elections after one year of the installation of provincial governments. This would keep the people busy in preparations for the local bodies’ elections at least for one year more. Furthermore, after local bodies and mayoral elections, people would start looking towards these institutions for redress of their problems, most of which are of local nature.

After two to three general elections, when people become used to change through the political process, the term of assemblies could again be fixed at five years, if the majority consented for that. Apparently, the move to reduce the term suits the current political situation and it should be seriously considered. However, constitutional changes must be effected only and only in the national interests and not on whimsical demands of an individual or a political party.

Furthermore, experience shows that it is not the tenure’s longevity but the public welfare programmes of a government that ultimately matter. If we glean history books, we find that the rulers who served the people selflessly outshine the rest and their deeds appear in the chronicles with golden letters and people continue to remember them till this day as benign rulers. For example, Sher Shah Suri continues to outshine amongst the rulers of the medieval era because of his public welfare projects.

On the contrary, the masses do not speak well about rulers who tried to engineer systems and bend laws so as to perpetuate their rule. General Ayub Khan made an effort to prolong his rule by devising a system of basic democracies, but within a few years, his next in command put an end to the worldly ambitions of his chief. The leader of the second putsch also developed a desire to extend his rule with the help of a politician, but this resulted in the country’s bifurcation. When the collaborating politician, who rose to power in the western part of the country, tried to prolong his rule, one of his hand-picked chief of the ‘Khaki’ establishment ascended to power by sending the erstwhile ruler to the gallows.

It is not the tenure or its longevity but a ruler’s service to the mankind that secures a good place for him/her not only in the minds of the people but also in the annals of history. Furthermore, as a token of their gratitude, people consider benign rulers as national heroes and elect them again and again, in one capacity or the other.