With executive authority increasingly in the hands of elected representatives, Pakistan's government has taken three important steps toward strengthening democracy and the rule of law. This would put Pakistan on sounder political footing than several other large Muslim countries, where similar efforts are proving far less successful.
LAHORE – Pakistani institutions are evolving rapidly. With executive authority increasingly in the hands of elected representatives, rather than dispersed among various competing institutions, the political establishment has been revitalized – and it has taken three important steps toward strengthening democracy and the rule of law. Is Pakistan, a country long prone to military coups, finally developing a well-functioning political system?
On November 27, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain – acting on the prime minister’s advice, as the constitution dictates – announced that General Raheel Sharif would succeed General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as Chief of Army Staff, even though Sharif was not among the military establishment’s favored candidates. Unlike Kayani – who has directed the Directorate-General of Military Operations and the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan’s spy agency) – Sharif has not served in any of the positions that typically prepare someone to lead Pakistan’s best-funded and most influential institution.
This was not Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s first act of defiance against the military. Just days earlier, he asked the Supreme Court to appoint a three-judge special tribunal to investigate charges of treason against Pakistan’s former president, General Pervez Musharraf, for imposing emergency military rule and suspending the constitution in November 2007.
LAHORE – Pakistani institutions are evolving rapidly. With executive authority increasingly in the hands of elected representatives, rather than dispersed among various competing institutions, the political establishment has been revitalized – and it has taken three important steps toward strengthening democracy and the rule of law. Is Pakistan, a country long prone to military coups, finally developing a well-functioning political system?
On November 27, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain – acting on the prime minister’s advice, as the constitution dictates – announced that General Raheel Sharif would succeed General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani as Chief of Army Staff, even though Sharif was not among the military establishment’s favored candidates. Unlike Kayani – who has directed the Directorate-General of Military Operations and the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan’s spy agency) – Sharif has not served in any of the positions that typically prepare someone to lead Pakistan’s best-funded and most influential institution.
This was not Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s first act of defiance against the military. Just days earlier, he asked the Supreme Court to appoint a three-judge special tribunal to investigate charges of treason against Pakistan’s former president, General Pervez Musharraf, for imposing emergency military rule and suspending the constitution in November 2007.