NSC attempt to rewrite civil-military equation - opposition senator

The creation of a National Security Council (NSC), presidential approval for which was granted on Monday, just five days after it was passed by the Pakistani senate, has been opposed because the opposition does not recognise the concept of such a council, a senior opposition senator said on Tuesday. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf signed the controversial bill creating the 13-member NSC into law as an act of parliament on Monday, less than a week after the country's senate passed the bill in the absence of the opposition who had staged a walk-out in protest. The government was earlier similarly accused by the opposition of pushing the bill through the national assembly, despite similar protests. "The opposition - the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) - have opposed the bill," Raza Rabbani, a PPPP senator, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "And we've opposed it on the basis of the principle that we believe that it's an attempt to rewrite the civil-military equation and to assign a role to the armed forces which, essentially, is not provided under the constitution," he stressed. The NSC, to be headed by the president, includes the prime minister, the chairman of the senate, the speaker of the national assembly, the leader of the opposition, the chief ministers of Pakistan's four provinces, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee as well as the heads of the army, navy and the air force. However, at the moment, the NSC has only 11 members because Musharraf holds the offices of both the country's president as well as the chief of the army, and a leader of the opposition has not yet been designated - a requirement usually fulfilled by the assembly's speaker. Despite the statistical anomaly, though, the council will still be able to function, Rabbani said. "The bill has a provision that, notwithstanding a vacancy in the security council, it can still function, so as far as the bill is concerned, it is covered by that provision of the law," he explained. "But, of course, in terms of democratic tradition, it's perhaps one of the exceptions in history where, after almost a year and a half of the houses of parliament being in existence, the leaders of the opposition have not been nominated," Rabbani said. "Our position is the same as with the 17th constitutional amendment bill [according to which the offices of the president and army chief must be separated by 31 December this year], that we do not recognise the concept of a National Security Council," he emphasised. "It has been passed by parliament as a law, but whenever we have a simple majority, we would go for its repeal," Rabbani stressed.