What will be new for caretaker govt this time?

ISLAMABAD  -  Since the Anwaarul Haq Kakar’s name for interim premier post was a surprise for many, the 8th caretaker setup is believed to be dif­ferent from rest of the seven interim governments in the past.

This caretaker setup, likely to be properly completed by the current week, might break all the previous records of ‘run­ning’ the government’s affairs for a long time.

The interim government, after enjoying the con­stitutional amendment to exercise unusual pow­ers, for the first time in the country’s history will be seen taking important policy decisions, politi­cal and constitutional experts believed.

Though Kakar would not enjoy a jumbo size fed­eral cabinet like of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had, yet this interim government would run the af­fairs of the country with a comparatively fat feder­al cabinet from the rest of the interim setups. The size of the previous caretaker setup was not more than 15 members.

Talking to this newspaper, a legal expert said that though caretaker cabinets were normally small in size to run day to day affairs, the interim prime minister has the discretion to extend it as per his facilitation.

According to the article-92 of the Constitution, the number of ministers and ministers of state in the federal cabinet should not exceed 11 per cent of the total membership of parliament and the law is seemingly silent in case of interim setup.

The main challenge for the current govern­ment is to hold the general elections in not more than four or five months and smartly deals with the next IMF program. The country’s top election body, in a first test case, has shared its guidelines with the interim prime minister for conducting upcoming polls.

The interim government, before the unusual amendment in the law, holds the duty of oversee­ing an electoral procedure. This encompasses the enforcement of steps to hinder any fraudulent ac­tivities related to voting and verifying the preci­sion of the voter registration.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt