From a column I did last year (SN: Sep 29, 2019): "Having said that, is it just guile which allows the president to go against the very constitution of his hero, Forbes Burnham? That tinkered Burnham-Shahabuddeen constitution, which Professor Rudy James noted was built on the foundation of a one-party or dictatorial constitution of Tanzania?
I don’t think it was guile. It was power! As a thought experiment, ask yourself whether the PPP could have delayed elections for close to one year if it had lost a no-confidence vote. As Mr. Ravi Dev said, the PNCR controls the ‘disruptive arms of the State.’ I like to think about it this way: the PNCR had a credible strategy of destabilisation when it was in opposition and the PPP/C has none. The PNC demonstrated this clearly after the 1997 general election. The protests established the conditions for the more violent outcomes after the jailbreak in February 2002. In other words, the PNCR has de facto power and the PPP/C does not. When in government the PPP/C has to hope the ‘disruptive arms of the State’ provides it with some de jure power. This fact has not yet been considered in the PPP/C’s post-2015 strategy set.