The UN’s assessment that Pakistan’s politics has become the inheritance of only 100 families shows the depths to which politics has been personalised. According to its human development index, 49 percent of the population has been pushed below the poverty line; besides, the standards of public health and education have considerably deteriorated. The UN report was also critical of the Benazir Income Support programme saying that better programmes would have to be introduced to fight poverty.

In the light of these findings, there appears to be a correlation between despair characterising Pakistani society today and unchecked personalisation of politics. For various reasons, Pakistan remains a country where development continues to elude. But complicating the matter is the fact that the parliament is taking on the character of an elite club, closed to the general masses. The result: a debilitating impact on democracy as we went through a spell of the kind of governance that paid no heed to the call for removal of hunger and provision of basic services to the people. That means that democracy in real sense is not being practised. The people will not have any say in corridors power, nor will their interest be watched when only certain families keep ruling over them.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...n-a-plutocracy