Remembering Yahya Khan: Echoes for a presidential government

The military holds a significant place in the history of Pakistan, as the Pakistani Armed Forces have played, and continue to play, a significant role in the Pakistani establishment and shaping of the country.

Although Pakistan was founded as a democracy after its independence from the British Raj, the military has remained one of the country’s most powerful institutions and has on occasion overthrown democratically elected civilian governments on the basis of self-assessed mismanagement and corruption.

In military rule, General Yahya Khan is an important and well-known name. Today, on the occasion of 40th death anniversary, the echoes for the presidential system are once being heard.

General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan

General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan was born at Chakwal on February 4, 1917. After independence, Yahya Khan played a major role in setting up the Pakistan Staff College at Quetta.

During the war of 1965, he commanded an infantry division. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army in 1966 with the rank of General.

1969 Martial Law

When, in 1969, countrywide agitation rendered the situation out of control, Ayub Khan decided to hand over power to the Army Chief, General Yahya Khan.

Immediately after coming to power, Yahya Khan declared Martial Law in the country on March 25, 1969, and assumed the title of Chief Martial Law Administrator.

He terminated the Constitution and dissolved the National and Provincial Assemblies. On March 31, he also became President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

First general elections in the history of Pakistan

Immediately after taking charge of the country, he started looking for options through which he could hand over power to the elected representatives. On March 29, 1970, through an Ordinance, he presented an interim Constitution, the Legal Framework Order.

It was actually a formula according to which the forthcoming elections were to be organized. It goes to the credit of Yahya Khan that the first general elections in the history of Pakistan were held during his regime in December 1970.

Fall of Dhaka

The trouble started when the results of the elections were announced. The Awami League, under the leadership of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman, swept 160 out of 162 seats allocated to East Pakistan.

However, the party failed to get even a single seat from any province of the Western Wing. On the other hand, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party emerged as the single largest party from Punjab and Sindh and managed to win 81 National Assembly seats, all from the Western Wing.

This split mandate resulted in political chaos where neither Bhutto nor Mujib was ready to accept his opponent as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. When Bhutto and Mujib failed to reach an understanding about convening a session of the newly elected National Assembly, the ball fell in Yahya Khan’s court.

He handled the situation badly. He used the army and paramilitary forces in East Pakistan to crush the political agitation. This resulted in the beginning of the war between Pakistan and India in the winter of 1971. Yahya Khan, as President as well as the Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army, failed to plan the war.

This ultimately resulted in the defeat of Pakistan, dismemberment of the country and imprisonment of more than 90,000 Pakistanis. Surrender of Pakistani forces without any resistance and the fall of Dhaka made Yahya Khan the greatest villain in the country.

People from all walks of life started criticizing him and thus he was left with no other option but to hand over the power to the leader of the most popular party of the remaining part of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, on December 20, 1971.

Later Bhutto placed Yahya Khan under house arrest in 1972. Yahya Khan died on August 10, 1980, in Rawalpindi.

Parliamentary and presidential systems

The majority of the developed states are ruling their states with the Presidential form of government. The prime example is the United States of America, Russia, China, France, etc.

The parliamentary system is mostly used in third world countries. The Presidential system or parliamentarian system is a way to run the democratic system.

The Parliamentary system is that legislation can be done easily as the parliament has the mandate of people to pass it. Whereas in a presidential system the executive is often chosen independently from the legislature.

The presidential form of government is suitable for Pakistan because all the powers are transferred to a single person and he requires no help from parliament to implement his agenda.

In the presidential form of government, if the president thinks it is difficult to convince parliament for the implementation of his agenda, then he can bypass Parliament and use his presidential powers.

The presidential form of democracy puts the decision-making process on a fast track and this is what our country requires at the moment. The main reason for the crisis in our country is that the process of decision making takes too much time.

It takes a lot of time to decide about a certain matter as the respective governments have to get parliament’s approval first. But in the presidential form of government, only a few individuals will be able to take the decision and that too within no time

Echoes for a presidential form of government 

In recent months, #WeWantPresidential­System trended on Twitter twice. Some quarters appear frustrated by the compromises and concessions that governments must inevitably make in a parliamentary system.

PTI supporters claim that Pakistan would be better off with a presidential system where the president can implement his vision and policy with greater freedom and autonomy.

Why the presidential form of government?

In order for any legal system, to be effective, it requires good governance. In Pakistan, the parliamentary system of government has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the way of an efficient legal system and implementation of the rule of law.

Our parliament has become a farce. Parliamentarians who belong to the privileged class act as power brokers and are only concerned with keeping themselves entrenched in power.

Hardly any meaningful legislation is passed by parliament. We are left with a rubber stamp institution that no longer represents the ‘will of the people’.

For 72 odd years, Pakistan has been a perfect case study in mismanagement and blunders.  We have lost crucial time that could have been spent towards establishing good governance and rule of law.

By adopting a presidential system, Pakistan can make up for lost time and finally take concrete positive steps towards the betterment of its people. Time is running out. We must act fast.

No chance for a presidential government

Presidential systems have worked in countries that are relatively homogenous. Pakistan is not one of them. Transplanting that system in a country like ours will weaken the federation, not strengthen it. But then again, who cares what happens in the long run?

Political mobilization in Pakistan has historically been based upon strong regional identities. Consider how the PPP is limited to Sindh, the ANP to KP, the PML-N to Punjab and the BNP to Balochistan. No single political party is truly national.

For a divided society though, a parliamentary system is not enough. Constitutional theory suggests that in such countries power-sharing must be coupled with group autonomy by using federalism to guarantee each group or sub-national identity a degree of control and autonomy within a pre-determined sphere.

It is clear now that it is not possible to introduce a presidential form of government with the existing mandate. It will require a new constituent assembly to change the parliamentary form of government into the presidential one.

Therefore, instead of changing the form of government, there is a need of bringing reforms in the existing system. The process of electoral system needs reforms, the process of scrutiny before the elections should be strengthened so that honest and well-educated people could be elected as representatives.