Comment: Whose pragmatism? Which principles?

25 Jun 2015, 12:20 PM
Azim Zahir
It is surprising that some have attempted to justify Wednesday’s constitutional amendment to change age requirement for the offices of president and vice president on its substance.
The efforts to amend the constitution by putting an age limit for the president and vice president and by giving the powers to the president to appoint and dismiss vice president, curtail electoral rights. This includes the right to elect the vice president and the right to contest political office. These efforts are also dictated by the whims and wishes of the government of the day, not by any widely felt need for democratic reforms to the constitution.
However, it is more baffling the amendment has been defended on the basis of “pragmatism”. This is because this amendment is directly related to the failure of opposition’s “pragmatism”. One is forced to wonder whose “pragmatism” does the vote serve?
Whose pragmatism?
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