Staff Reporter
Pakistani-American, Hafeez-uz-Rehman Choudhary, who has filed a petition in the Supreme Court on presidential form of government on Tuesday said that only presidential form of government could solve Pakistan’s problems. Parliamentary form of government is a system of minority rule.
He said that Pakistan’s poor people could get rid of hereditary style of politics and groups and bands indulging in politics of blackmail only through this system.
Under the parliamentary form of government, people of Pakistan have been deprived of political justice, which has been promised in the Constitution.
The petition states that under the Constitution “the State has to exercise its power through the chosen representatives of the people” and there is no specific provision in the Constitution which restricts that the chosen representatives have to be elected under a parliamentary system of government. This could be done under a presidential form of government either.
He said that if in a country people are not getting political justice, they would also not get social and economic justice as a consequence.
He said that the constitutional process remained marred in palace intrigues, political squabbles and this led to dissolution of successive cabinets and MPs and political leaders remained focused on petty issues of their constituency politics, adding that there were structural flaws in the 1973 Constitution and it was because of those structural flaws that 1977, 1999 and 2007 political crisis hit the country.
Hafeez said that the 25% reserved seats in the NA are a form of corruption and this provision deprives the people of Pakistan of political justice. In the presidential form of government there would be no special seats in Parliament.
Similarly indirect election of Senators also deprives people of their political rights as their vote is not included in the process.
He said that in the parliamentary form of government those elected on independent tickets sell their loyalties and deprive the majority party coming into power.
He further said that a presidential form of government could bring more unity to linguistically diverse countries like Pakistan and establish a strong federation and bring unity among the provinces.
Any Pakistani citizen who had a good team and good set of policies could become President under this type of system.
He said that the countries that have come into existence during the past 30 years all have presidential forms of government.
