Pakistan has been buzzing with rumours around the 27th Amendment for months, but the cat came out of the bag this week when President Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari received a visit from a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) team headed by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
In a post on X, Bhutto-Zardari said they shared a draft of proposed changes that relate to management and disciplining of the judiciary, distribution of resources between the federal and provincial governments, and alterations to Article 243 of the 1973 Constitution, pertaining to control of the armed forces.
Reactions were swift. Pushtun leader Mohsin Dawar called the 27th Amendment “a blatant attempt to undo the 18th Amendment, long the bane of Punjab’s civil-military elite”. He reminded people that former army chief General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa called the 18th Amendment — which gave provinces some administrative and considerable financial power — “more dangerous” than Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s 1966 six-point formula for East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Because of the 18th Amendment, a powerful military, which is now on course to turning Pakistan into a hard state, faces one major issue: it doesn’t control the financial resources it wishes to have at its disposal.
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Why Pakistani military resents 18th Amendment
General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, who became the army chief at the end of 2007 after Pervez Musharraf, couldn’t stop then-president Asif Ali Zardari from pushing through the 18th Amendment that empowered provinces.
I am reminded of all the negative chatter at the time — cribbing about the provinces’ supposed inability to handle extra funds. Despite that, the amendment passed.
Later, every time the army asked Nawaz Sharif’s government for more money, it was told that nothing additional was available since most resources now lay with the provinces. That’s when a long struggle began, with successive generals voicing their unhappiness over the shift of financial power to the provinces.
While the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), currently headed by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, is viewed as the main proponent of the 18th Amendment, all parties supported it as each benefitted from the transfer of power.
Prominent Pakistani journalist Arifa Noor, while speaking at a seminar at London’s SOAS, pointed out that the 18th Amendment nullified the issue of anti-incumbency votes in parties’ respective provinces. People didn’t change parties in the provinces unless forced to by the military because they knew that their provincial governments had the resources. Hence, the PPP continued to win in Sindh, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the PML-N in Punjab. While Sharif’s party didn’t gain in Punjab in the 2024 elections, that was for different political reasons.
What will 27th Amendment do for Munir?
Where Generals Kiyani, Sharif, and Bajwa did not succeed, Field Marshal Asim Munir hopes to win. The two major parties, the PMLN and the PPP, are largely under his thumb, while the PTI is in fairly bad shape.
However, signing off on the 27th Amendment’s proposed changes to the National Finance Commission (NFC) award would be political suicide for any party, especially the PPP, which will face resistance from its support base at home. Of course, Munir is likely willing to apply all pressure. It’s worth watching what kind of arm-twisting tactics he will use and whether they will work.
Meanwhile, in case there are legal challenges, there are also plans to ‘discipline’ the judges, such as empowering the Supreme Judicial Council to transfer judges without their prior approval.
As sources who follow the higher courts told me, until now, the practice has been to seek a judge’s consent before a transfer to another court. This method is said to have been recently used to transfer a senior judge from the Lahore High Court to the Islamabad High Court.
The apparent plan is now not to wait for consent. Such a change would turn the higher judiciary into a bureaucracy controlled from the top — in effect, by the Chief Justice and his clique at the Supreme Court.
Additionally, the government wants to establish an independent Constitutional Court to keep rebellious judges from hearing constitutional matters. The problem that the establishment faces is that under the existing 26th Amendment — which was passed earlier to separate constitutional matters from other cases heard by the courts, and which has been challenged — there remains the risk of unfavourable judges being part of the bench. Journalist Matiullah Jan, speaking to me, claimed that the idea is to turn the Supreme Court into an appellate court with no power to hear constitutional matters.
A separate Constitutional Court will further empower the Chief Justice, who seems to abide by the will of the establishment, and could ensure that only favourable judges hear cases pertaining to the Constitution. This is a carefully crafted move to shift the judiciary from the Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry days, when it seemed to have become too independent, to one that is totally pliant. In fact, it is bringing the highest court back to the days when it justified martial laws by citing Kelsen’s ‘doctrine of necessity.’
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Beyond ‘hybrid’ rule
It is not that Pakistan is about to return to the days of direct military rule, but the existing hybrid system, where the army is practically in charge of all strategic matters and governance, gives rise to issues that may get challenged in the Supreme Court. A friendly and pliant court would then solve such problems.
People watching Pakistan’s politics from within fear that while the military may not step in directly, there is an increasing threat of the Field Marshal taking greater control. Some believe that he wants to see greater power given to the office of the President, as reportedly proposed in the 27th Amendment.
Initially, it was rumoured that the control over appointments of all service chiefs and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC), as well as decisions on their pay and other emoluments, would be transferred to the President. Currently, this power lies with the cabinet.
However, as more information filtered in, it appeared that Munir wants to acquire greater power over all services. Journalist Asma Shirazi suggested that there is a proposal to create a position resembling a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). The Field Marshal would then head a central command and be in charge of all services. This, it is believed, has been necessitated by the recent conflict with India, with the army chief feeling the urgency for better coordinated planning.
Interestingly, a similar move was made by the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who created an additional four-star position of the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) responsible for joint planning. This institution couldn’t perform since the army came into power in 1977, and has never been allowed to function to its fullest. Creating a new central organisation would not do any better.
This is really about Munir trying to acquire more power. It remains to be seen if he would also retain the office of the army chief or transfer power to some other general. Politically, this would be risky, as his predecessors like Ayub Khan and Pervez Musharraf lost their power and sheen the minute they left the position of army chief. Surely, gaining greater power within his institution may not necessarily impact the military’s performance, but it will turn the Field Marshal into a giant whose presence could, over the years, make others uncomfortable.
Sources I spoke with suggest that Munir does not intend to surrender his position as army chief, which will continue until 2027. However, it seems he now wants to also wear a second hat as central commander, a position that would probably continue until 2030 and allow him to oversee the 2029 general elections. It is said that a draft of the 27th Amendment will formally be submitted to the Senate on Friday, 7 November. Such a change, if approved, will create its own set of complications.
The 27th Amendment is really about Munir’s power consolidation—and Pakistan slipping further toward the unravelling of democracy.
Ayesha Siddiqa is a senior fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. She tweets @iamthedrifter. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)