Pakistan News Roundup | A View From Abroad

Contributed by Mehlaqa Samdani, adviser to the PCR Project, CSIS 18th Amendment Pakistan is abuzz at the prospect of the country’s 1973 constitution being amended for the 18th time.  This could occur through the PPP’s proposed constitutional package, which will deal with a variety of different issues including the restoration of the judges, Musharraf’s authority to dissolve the national assembly through 58 (2)b, the power of the prime minister to authorize army transfers, etc. It is being reported that a session of the national assembly could be convened as early as May 26 in order to introduce the constitutional package developed by the PPP.  While Zardari plans to meet with Nawaz Sharif to discuss details of the package in the next couple of days, Sharif’s support of the package is not guaranteed.  It is said that the PPP will try and push the minus 1 or 2 formula (retaining Abdul Hameed Dogar as the Chief Justice and reducing Iftikhar Chaudhry's term) through the constitutional package, which will most likely be unacceptable to the PML-N.   The question then becomes whether the PPP will succeed in passing the constitutional amendment bill without PML-N’s support. Analysts believe that even if the PML-N opts not to support the proposed 18th amendment, the PPP might still have enough votes in both the national assembly and senate to have the package passed.  For any constitutional amendment to pass, it is necessary to have two-thirds majority in both houses.  Given the current composition of the national assembly and senate, this means amending the constitution would require 228 seats in parliament and 66 in the senate.  According to an expert, without the PML-N there are 245 members in the National Assembly, which would make the constitutional amendment within reach of the PPP given its alliances with the ANP, JUI-F, MQM, PML-Q.  Even if a forward [Unification] bloc is created within the PML-Q which aligns itself with PML-N, it is still unclear whether the PML-N/PML-Q partnership would jeopardize the passage of the 18th amendment as currently the forward bloc only consists of about 22 members in the Punjab assembly. In terms of the Senate, the PML-Q enjoys 42 of the 66 seats required to pass the constitutional amendment.  Here again, the PPP should have little difficulty in getting the requisite votes. If the constitutional package passes through both houses without amendments, the bill would then end up with Musharraf, who has in recent days indicated he would not have a problem relinquishing some of his authority under 58-2(b) as long as his actions of November 3rd are given some kind of legal cover and his favoured judges continue to sit in the higher courts of Pakistan.