THE 18th Amendment may have won passage through the National Assembly, and may well be passed by the Senate, but it has already run into difficulties, and some of its provisions have already caused an outburst in public opinion. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Amendment has been the renaming of the NWFP, and that is the provision that has provoked the most protest. It is now possible to understand why the province was not renamed so far. The opposition is centred around the Hazara Division, which is not Pushtu-speaking, and thus has an inbuilt objection to any name which includes the word Pakhtoonkhwa. As this is something close to the Hazara Division , which has consistently sent PML members to the National Assembly, including Mian Nawaz Sharif himself, he has tried to take up the issue, with a promise of the tour of the area, but this amounts to shutting the stable-door after the horse has bolted. The time for opposition is past, and the PML(N) did not stop the name change in the parliamentary committee, nor in the National Assembly, and thus is unlikely to stop it in the Senate. The PML(N) might wish to look at other aspects of the Bill if indeed it finds bringing about changes to what it agreed to in the committee, all that easy. Perhaps it might like to look at the fact that there is no prohibition on the President also being the head of a political party, as the present incumbent is. This has caused problems of which the PML(N), through its government in the Punjab, has direct experience. The PML(N) also does not seem engaged by the fact that dynasticism in politics was to have been brought to an end by party election, raising the suspicion the PML(N) overlooked this, because the PML(N) leadership has ambitions of its own in this direction. There has not been enough attention paid to the new method of appointing judges, which has got the legal community protesting, which implies that the measure as passed needs revision. Other aspects of the bill show that it was designed to fulfill PPP ambitions, both individual and collective. Other parties, which include the PML(N), merely played along to rid the Constitution of the accretions of the past, and to prevent the present occupant of the Presidency from having the powers of a military ruler. In the meanwhile, the ANP extracted its pound of flesh in the shape of the name change. Even now, all is not lost, and the government still has the opportunity in the Senate of making the 18th Amendment one which truly reflects the will of the people, and not just of a particular political party.