It is an irony of fate that a powerful section of people in this country is yet to concede the fact that Pakistan is a Federation with Parliamentary System of Government when the 1962 Constitution of Ayub Khan was abrogated by another military Junta.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman believes the presidential system will be better for the country. There has always been an urge in the country to invent and innovate, in the name of the people and good governance, out of frustration, more ambition.  There have been military dictators imposing themselves on people and political leaders dreaming of capturing absolute power as ‘amirul momineen’.

Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal also favors President and said that Pakistan would not progress without having a presidential system of governance. KP governor said, “As per my culture and with amendment, I think presidential system will be better here and more efficient, corruption will be reduced, there will be no blackmailing, federating units will be protected and there will be equal opportunities for all.”

Asfandyar Wali Khan has said “Awami National Party would not accept the presidential form of government and would not allow anyone to snatch their constitutional rights to alter the 18th constitutional amendment.” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has dismissed reports of any move to introduce a presidential system in the country.

Rumours have been circulating in various political and social circles regarding a plan for introducing presidential form of government in the country and the issue is being debated on the social media. On the contrary, the reason was that Pakistan was ungovernable with the one-man autocratic rule where provinces denied their legitimate and constitutional powers due to highly personalized rule.

Malik Ghulam Mohammad, Sikandar Mirza, Ayub Khan, General Yahya Khan, General Ziaul Haq, Pervez Musharraf were all dictators and imposed their highly personalized rule of the country and damaged it to the maximum. Bengal was on the forefront in the struggle and it was followed by Balochistan, Sindh and KPK seeking revival of the Federal Parliamentary system of Government. That powerful section of our society is opposed to stronger Federating Units by using the Federal institutions and departments to undermine the provincial rights, right to self rule under the democratic concept of political or regional autonomy.

There are constant attacks on the provincial rights using the powers and influence of the Federal institutions and departments to undermine constitutional autonomy to the Federating Units. It is true that the present rulers are reluctant to hold regular and periodic meetings of Council of Common Interests to settle issues of the Federating Units. They prefer to be called a King rather than sharing powers with the provinces.

The recent round of debate on the presidential system could well have been necessitated by an inability to generate enough opposition to the 18th Amendment — which is found troublesome enough for many of the current lot of rulers to publicly wish its demise.

The Country is presently passing through a serious crisis, both economic and political, needing the support of the broad masses from all the four corners of the country to defend Pakistan’s solidarity and integrity. The fate of those who flirted with the idea of a new system in the past, Prime Minister Imran Khan and his well-wishers would be best advised to concentrate on improving and rebuilding that lower end of the system.

The Presidential system will just be a martial law with a front man because it will not give anything to the public but take away their once in a five year chance to shape the direction of the country.