Strongmen have followed the playbook of “divide and rule” since antiquity, and Pakistan’s most powerful man is no exception. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Pakistani military chief who wields real power despite a nominally superior president and prime minister, may be planning to break up the country’s four provinces into a dozen or more, according to a report by The Economist.
Pakistan’s four primary administrative provinces — Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan– have remained unchanged since the country’s creation in 1947. The most populous province, Punjab, has a population of 128 million, slightly over half the national population, while Balochistan, the least populous province, has just 15 million people, some 6 per cent of the total.
Reformers have long argued that the arrangement makes governance unwieldy. Now Munir, who is seen as Pakistan’s de facto ruler, reportedly wants to redraw the map entirely, replacing the four provinces with 12, 15, or even 160 smaller ones.
The rationale sounds reasonable, but the motive, critics suspect, is less so. According to The Economist report, the divided new mini-polities are likely to be ruled by elected chiefs, or by provincial or district assemblies, or by nominees of “the government” — which is essentially the Field Marshal himself.
Strongmen have followed the playbook of “divide and rule” since antiquity, and Pakistan’s most powerful man is no exception. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Pakistani military chief who wields real power despite a nominally superior president and prime minister, may be planning to break up the country’s four provinces into a dozen or more, according to a report by The Economist.
Pakistan’s four primary administrative provinces — Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan– have remained unchanged since the country’s creation in 1947. The most populous province, Punjab, has a population of 128 million, slightly over half the national population, while Balochistan, the least populous province, has just 15 million people, some 6 per cent of the total.
Reformers have long argued that the arrangement makes governance unwieldy. Now Munir, who is seen as Pakistan’s de facto ruler, reportedly wants to redraw the map entirely, replacing the four provinces with 12, 15, or even 160 smaller ones.
The rationale sounds reasonable, but the motive, critics suspect, is less so. According to The Economist report, the divided new mini-polities are likely to be ruled by elected chiefs, or by provincial or district assemblies, or by nominees of “the government” — which is essentially the Field Marshal himself.
