Back to Democracy, On the Double

Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, Pakistan's President pro tempore and army commander, is a rather reluctant strongman. Last March Yahya imposed martial law and took over the presidency in the wake of nationwide rioting prompted by the autocratic rule of Ayub Khan. At the time, Yahya promised a swift return to democracy. Two weeks ago, in a broadcast to his 130 million fellow citizens, he kept his word. Promising --indeed, practically commanding--an orderly march back to civilian rule, he said: "I am not prepared to tolerate any obstruction in the restoration of democracy." Last week Yahya explained his political views to TIME Correspondent Dan Coggin at the President's House in Rawalpindi. "I am quite certain," he said forcefully, "that the people want democracy."

Out of this certitude, Yahya is about to undertake the most fundamental political changes in Pakistan since Britain granted it independence 22 years ago. On Jan. 1, such political activities as rallies and speeches will once again be permitted. By June, electoral rolls are to be brought up to date to include 60 million eligible Pakistanis 21 years old or over. On Oct. 5, in Pakistan's first nationwide elections, voters in West and East Pakistan will choose about 300 delegates to a constitutional convention. Yahya has given the delegates 120 days to write a constitution; if they do not succeed in that time, he will disband the convention and arrange for a new one to be elected. Once a constitution is approved, a government will be installed, with the convention delegates making up the National Assembly. That could come as early as 1971. Yahya is convinced that a freely elected Assembly will work in Pakistan. "I have been trying to rehabilitate the nation's political life," he told Coggin, "so that I could hand over the government to the people's representatives. I see some life in the political limbs now."

Sincere Desire. Cannily, Yahya has left himself two important powers to ensure that Pakistan's often obdurate politicians do not make a hash of the process. By limiting the length of the constitutional convention, he hopes to force the delegates to get on with the job or risk new elections. By reserving the right to approve the finished constitution, he intends to prevent the enactment of provisions that could lead to turmoil or shatter Pakistan's unity. Two other provisions he has made appear to demonstrate Yahya's sincere desire to restore civilian rule:

> For the first time, Pakistan will operate under the one-man, one-vote rule. The chief result will be to give populous but impoverished East Pakistan greater power--this despite the fact that Yahya is a West Pakistani and his province has been predominant in the past. The move, he explained, was "a basic requirement of any democratic form of government."

> Before a new government actually takes office, power will be broadly decentralized. West Pakistan was created by consolidating the provinces of Sind, Baluchistan, West Punjab and the Northwest Frontier, but for 14 years it has been dominated by elite Punjabis and Pathans. Though Yahya is a Pathan (as is Ayub), he ordered that the West be broken up into its original four provinces. More significantly, East Pakistan, separated from the West by 1,000 miles of Indian territory, will be granted "maximum autonomy." Yahya told Coggin: "The degree of provincial autonomy and other things I was not quite certain about I have left up to the constituent assembly."

More freedom for East Pakistan could well save the geographically divided nation from dissolution. East and West Pakistan are both overwhelmingly Moslem, but they differ in virtually every other way--even down to diet. The Bengalis of the East are rice eaters, while the West Pakistanis favor wheat. The main difference, however, is that East Pakistan has long been treated like a colony of the West. Though the East has 58% of the population, seats in the old Assembly were evenly divided, and the richer, better-educated Westerners ran the government. Tax money and foreign aid were distributed in the West's favor. The situation finally led to this year's riots, in which more than 100 East Pakistanis died. "The people of East Pakistan," Yahya admitted in his address, "did not have their full share in the decision-making process. They were fully justified in being dissatisfied."

Wrong Temperament. East Pakistan, on a one-man one-vote basis, should get 168 seats out of 300 in the Assembly, and may well name the first Prime Minister of the new government. Pakistan's largest political party is believed to be the Dacca-based Awami League. Sheik Mujibur Rahman, Awami's 47-year-old leader, is the top prospect for the prime-ministership. The selection of "Mujib," as his followers call him, would represent quite a turnabout. LInder Ayub Khan, he was jailed for 21 months for demanding purbodesh, or regional autonomy. To keep the long-subservient Easterners from totally dominating the West, however, Yahya favors a bicameral legislature. Its upper house would be patterned after Britain's House of Lords and its seats apportioned evenly between East and West.

And what of Yahya's future? In eight months as a caretaker, he sought to modernize education, raised the industrial minimum wage 30%, to $26 a month, and shook up the central government bureaucracy (he once castigated its functionaries as "a bunch of thieves"). Pakistanis suspected that he sought a reputation as a reformer primarily to perpetuate himself in power. But Yahya's recent speech and his apparently genuine desire to step aside after a Prime Minister is named have pretty well disabused them of that notion. "I feel more at home as a soldier," Yahya remarked to Coggin last week. "By temperament I have not liked being President. I became President only as my duty and have not relished it." It would be ironic if the people of Pakistan, now largely convinced that Yahya is not just another power-hungry general, ask him to stay on in the new democracy, after all, as ceremonial President and unofficial conscience of the nation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.