It may take a while, but there is every reason to believe that Pakistanis will eventually catch the bug. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Commentary M Pakistan.
The Legal Framework Order. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar May 01, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar. Topics : instability , Military , politics. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. What you can do to Support our work Join us.
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In April and July , he held discussions with prominent political party leaders to learn their point of view. Most of them asked for the revival of the Constitution of on the ground that its abrogation had been unlawful, and the country should return to the constitutional position prevailing on the eve of the coup.
Yahya Khan initially agreed with this opinion, but had to change his stance due to opposition from the Awami League. Not being well versed in constitutional affairs, he appointed a team to draft a new constitutional formula. He voiced his ideas about the constitutional issues in his broadcast address to the nation on November 28, The formula was officially issued on March 30, , and is known as the Legal Framework Order of According to this order, One Unit was dissolved in West Pakistan and direct ballot replaced the principle of parity.
The federal government would be named the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; it should preserve Islamic ideology and its head should necessarily be a Muslim. All citizens would enjoy fundamental human rights. There were opposing opinions also about various aspects of the LFO, but there were four areas in which legal experts had substantive reservations. These were: the LFO said that if the Constituent Assembly could not frame a constitution within the stipulated time the Assembly would stand dissolved and new elections held; the president would reject any constitution framed by the Assembly if it did not meet the requirements mentioned in the LFO; the president would have the power to interpret and amend the Constitution; and that his decision could not be challenged in any court of law.
But polarisation appeared so intense that the slide in the vote bank could be seen from the crowds. Without going into any academic interpretation the results could be forecast. While the AL drew its popularity from its six-point programme, the PPP had a new social and economic programme that was sending shockwaves through the established and traditional power bastions in the western wing.
The Yahya administration was not unaware of the situation, but wanted to prove the credibility of its pledge for holding free and fair polls.
Yahya had already asked Justice Abdus Sattar to prepare electoral rolls within the given time. Since it was the first ever general election in the country on one-man one-vote basis there was no previous data hence caution was taken to coordinate all functions of the Election Commission. The first task was the preparation of the electoral rolls including the names of those who had attained the age of 21 years on October 1, The first draft was displayed on January 16, and with minor corrections the final list appeared on March The electoral rolls spoke of the possible result of the polls.
The number of total registered voters in the country was shown to be 56,,, out of which 31,, were in the eastern wing and 25,, were in the western wing. The temper in East Pakistan was quite obvious that if AL took the eastern vote bank en bloc it would leave no chance for any leader in the western wing even if all parties and groups clubbed together. Nonetheless, elections do offer all kinds of chances.
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