Key leaders of coalition partners, reacting to Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s proposal to overhaul the country’s governance structure and create new provinces, have urged him to first implement the National Action Plan, arguing that Pakistan’s governance failures stem from constitutional violations rather than the existing federating units.
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif responded to Naqvi’s remarks in a post on X, also referencing comments made by the DG ISPR. “Mohsin Naqvi sahib expressed his views on the dire state of the system. I more or less personally agree with these views,” Asif wrote, describing the interior minister as a “powerhouse.” He added that, as a political worker, he believed the country’s political evolution had been “held captive to factional and personal interests for decades” and needed to be freed.
Asif advised Naqvi to begin any overhaul by implementing NAP through his own ministry and separately urged him to bring about a “revolution” in the Pakistan Cricket Board, which Naqvi also heads alongside his interior ministry role.
Last week, Naqvi had said the country’s governance system had “collapsed,” arguing that Pakistan needed new administrative units, or provinces, to improve service delivery, accountability, and access to justice. He also called for new leadership, saying the country’s youth wanted justice, merit, and jobs rather than stipends and laptops. A day later, the military’s spokesperson echoed the call, urging political parties to consider an administrative reset, arguing that the country’s security and stability depended on adapting its governance structure to modern demands and a growing population.
Asif said that if the system is to be strengthened and meaningful reforms introduced, the appropriate forum is parliament, of which Naqvi is a member, or the federal cabinet. “This way, these institutions and the system would be strengthened, and change would come through a constitutional process,” he said. He also noted that Naqvi rarely attends parliamentary or cabinet sessions despite being a cabinet member. “In my opinion, treating these institutions as irrelevant and making such a major statement before a captive audience after inviting the country’s eminent and respected businessmen does not carry the same weight that it would have had if made at the relevant constitutional forums,” he said, adding that Naqvi had held a “very powerful position” in the system for the past three years and could have pursued systemic change through it had he wished.
In a follow-up post, Asif again urged Naqvi to reform the PCB instead. “Naqvi sahib, systems evolve continuously, and they should. As an example, bring about a revolution in the PCB. Cricket fans are not satisfied with its performance,” he wrote, noting that in the PCB, “all authority rests with you. There is neither a prime minister nor parliament nor any outdated system standing in your way.”
Rabbani Opposes New Provinces
Former Senate chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has separately and strongly opposed the proposal to create new provinces, arguing that Pakistan’s governance failures stem from violations of the Constitution rather than the structure of the existing federating units. In a detailed statement, he cautioned that redrawing administrative boundaries would not resolve the country’s deep-rooted systemic issues, pointing instead to the erosion of provincial autonomy and the weakening of democratic institutions as the real causes of the governance crisis.
Rabbani cited a long list of contributing factors: the repeated derailment of the democratic process, the ceding of political space to the civil-military bureaucracy, the weakening of the federation through centralisation of power in Islamabad, dictators amending the Constitution at will, more than ten governance models experimented with since 1947, policy decisions made outside parliament rendering it redundant, the failure to hold free and fair elections as envisaged, governance carried out in blatant violation of the Constitution, disregard for the doctrine of the trichotomy of powers, the prevalence of rule by law instead of rule of law, and the denial of provincial autonomy. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
Rabbani proposed several remedies in response: strict adherence to the supremacy of the Constitution of 1973; upholding the rule of law; full compliance with the provincial autonomy guaranteed under the Constitution; strict observance of the trichotomy of powers; and devolving political, administrative, and financial authority to elected local governments as envisaged under Article 140-A.
