ISLAMABAD: Senior leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Raza Rabbani has condemned the idea of installing a technocratic caretaker government or a long term caretaker government.
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In a statement issued here on Friday, Raza Rabbani said “the talk of a technocrat caretaker government or a long term caretaker government is ultra vires of the Constitution, 1973. Therefore, condemned and shall be resisted.”
He said the Constitution, 1973, provides for a caretaker Cabinet in terms of Article 224, Constitution, 1973, wherein, such a caretaker Cabinet is activated on the dissolution of the Assembly on completion of its term, or in case it is dissolved under Article 58 or Article 112, Constitution, 1973, then the President or the Governor, as the case may be, shall appoint a caretaker Cabinet in consultation with the Prime Minister and or Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing National Assembly or Provincial Assembly, as the case may be.
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Raza Rabbani further said that the Constitution further provides that if the Prime Minister or the Chief Minister, as the case may be and the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly or the Provincial Assembly, as the case may be, cannot arrive at an agreement then the provisions of Article 224 A, Constitution, 1973, shall be triggered.
“There is no other provision in the Constitution, 1973, for a caretaker Cabinet nor can any such provision be provided for by way of subordinate legislation,” he said, adding that “it is time that we stop making Pakistan a laboratory and produce test tube systems which have failed.”
Till now the following forms of government have at one time or another been experimented with;
i) Military dictatorship. ii) Quasi-Military dictatorship. iii) Presidential form of government. iv) Unelected Majlis-e-Shoora. v) Technocrat government. vi) Elections through basic democrat. vii) Hybrid democracy. viii) Quasi-Parliamentary form of government. ix) Party less elections. x) Quasi Presidential form of Government.
Citing media reports, Raza Rabbani said government functionaries should refrain from making suggestions of unconstitutional forms of government. If such a technocrat government is installed it will open the floodgates of political instability which will have a corresponding effect on the already worsening economic situation, he added.
