Islamabad, Oct 24 (IANS) Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir’s centralisation drive has raised concerns over the future of provincial autonomy, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa highlighting how the centre can curb an elected province’s political authority without altering the country’s map, a report has stated.

The development points to a model of central control in which a province that becomes the base of a national political challenge can be placed under emergency measures, leaving its geographical boundaries intact, while suspending its autonomy, a report in Parrhesia News detailed.

Islamabad resorted to an extraordinary constitutional measure to contain its opposition by stripping the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of its powers. On October 11, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari approved emergency measures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suspending the provincial government led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

While Islamabad justified the move by citing the provincial government’s failure to tackle militancy, it came amid an ongoing Long March demanding Khan’s release. By weakening the provincial government, the federal leadership has targeted the very institutional base from which the movement challenging its authority draws much of its strength, the report stated.

According to the report, the intervention assumes greater significance when viewed against the broader push towards centralisation in Pakistan. Munir’s proposals for creating new provinces, it said, could further weaken the federation’s remaining centres of autonomous political power.

While provincial reorganisation may serve legitimate administrative purposes, dividing existing provinces into smaller, more dependent units could reduce their bargaining power over resources and weaken their ability to resist decisions made by the Centre, the report noted.

“The emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa approaches the same problem through a different instrument. Territorial reorganisation could fragment provincial power over time. Governor’s rule can neutralise it immediately. One redraws the institution; the other takes away its authority. Both can leave the vocabulary of federalism intact while reducing the capacity of a province to act independently,” Parrhesia News mentioned.

The report further argued that the October 11 decision can be viewed as another potential move in Munir’s broader effort to consolidate power by weakening institutions capable of turning public support into opposition to the military-backed order. The key issue, it stressed, is not whether the emergency proclamation carries the army chief’s signature, but whether the arrangement strengthens the system over which he presides.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa demonstrates why provincial autonomy remains troublesome to that system. Khan is imprisoned, yet his party can still govern a province, organise a sustained political campaign and challenge Islamabad from an elected institutional base. A provincial government gives opposition something more durable than a rally: administrative authority, political continuity and a territorial centre around which supporters can mobilise. The Long March has made that residual power visible. The emergency seeks to make it unavailable,” the report mentioned.

--IANS

scor/as