Is Parlimentary System a basis for failure of Democracy?
 

I read an article that says one reason of failure of democracy in Pakistan is its Parliamentary form of government.. The writer mentions the flaws of Parliamentary system and compare sit with presidential form of govt. He in the end suggests that in Pakistan, there should be Presidential System instead of Parliamentary System. Please comment on it and tell me can we make the following paragraphs a part of our paper if we are asked reasons of failure of democracy in Pakistan?

[B]Failure of Democracy in Pakistan
Shahzad Kazi[/B]


[I][I][I][I]Now that the representatives of the public have been elected, and the assemblies are in place, with the elected members waiting anxiously for the first session to be called, it may be time to look at the current form of government.

History has shown us experimenting
with various different forms of government, with none of them being successful. The primary cause of failure of democracy in Pakistan is that democratically elected governments have not been allowed to function and to serve out their tenures, which in turn leads to a lack of strong democratic institutions. Another cause may be low literacy rates amongst the masses. However, given that the situation will not change dramatically in the near future, we should also analyze another important factor that contributes to the failure of democracy, that being the parliamentary form of government.

Under a parliamentary form of government, the masses vote for their representatives, who are then elected to the various provincial and the national assemblies. The parliamentarians from the majority party then nominate an individual, usually the party leader, as the leader of the house in the assembly. The nomination of these individuals is then ratified by a simple majority vote in the assembly and then they are elected Prime Minister and Chief Ministers. The respective chief ministers and the Prime Minister have the authority to appoint ministers to their respective cabinets from within the elected members of the different houses. A non-elected member may also be appointed a minister or even a Chief or Prime Minister, but he/she will have to get elected to the assembly within a specified period of time in order to maintain his/her position. The Prime Minister essentially appoints the President.

The major issue with the parliamentary form of government is that even though the Prime Minister is the Chief Executive of the country, a President who is appointed by the Prime Minister is the official Head of State. The same holds true of the provincial governors. Hence we see that even though the President and the Governors are heads of the country and the provinces, they are appointed and not elected. At the same time the people do not directly elect the Prime Minister who is the Chief Executive, either. A fallacy here is that a President who is appointed by the Prime Minister or a Governor who is appointed by a Chief Minister can throw them out of office and can unilaterally dissolve the elected assemblies. Another problem that comes up is the power sharing between the troika of the President, the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff, thereby lending credence to the maxim "Too many cooks spoil the broth".

Once the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister are appointed the power play comes into place in the assemblies for the appointment of ministers. Since the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers are not elected directly by the public, but by the members of the assemblies, in order to keep their positions; they have to keep the elected members happy. One result of this is the burgeoning of ministries leading to subsequent confusion and cost. The main motive of each elected member is to become a minister in order to wield power, which leads to subsequent corruption. Even if the Prime and the Chief Ministers are honest and sincere, in order to keep their jobs; they have to pay heed to the members of the assemblies. Thus we see that the elected representatives of the people end up detracting from their primary job of legislation and concentrate on filling their own coffers.

Under the Presidential form of government the President is elected through direct adult franchise or as in the case of the USA through the Electoral College, which in turn depends upon the population of each state. The President is not only the Chief Executive, but is also the Head of State. State governors are also elected directly by the public. Similarly, the members of the Congress and the Senate are also elected directly by the public. The president then appoints his cabinet members, who are not part of the elected representatives. The members of the Congress and Senate perform their primary function of legislation and act as watchdogs on the President and the Cabinet. The cabinet members are usually technocrats who are experts in their respective fields.

In the case of Pakistan we see that most political parties have no manifestos and in many cases the elected representatives routinely switch political parties, depending on which side their bread is buttered. At the same time the public votes for Bhutto’s party or Nawaz Sharif’s party and in the absence of a clear manifesto, the success or failure of a party depends upon the charisma of its leader or the individual influence of the candidates.

Looking at the above analysis, why should we not revisit the issue of the form of government for Pakistan? In my opinion, the presidential form of government is a truer form of democracy and is more suited to the Pakistan environment rather than the parliamentary form, which is not only cumbersome but also very expensive.[/I][/I][/I][/I]

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Hello :)

Both the systems have their own merits and demerits .No system is flawless or perfect therefore,one can't assert any one system as superlative.As for the author of this article is concerned, he tried to portray presidential form of government as the panacea or elixir for all problems.I think this is not fully right.

The parliamentary system was prescribed by the British Govt. in the Indian Act of 1935.After the establishment of Pakistan the same Act worked as de facto constitution of Pakistan.that is why the same system was adopted for the new country following on the footsteps of the old Masters.The fact that the system flourished in Great Britain ;most of the British colonies followed this system.it is working perfectly in UK but failed in many countries.

This system is suitable for countries where people are politically mature and two party culture has been consolidated deeply.This hinges on the temperament and political will of the people of any country.The good example is UK.

Presidential form is successfully running in US. The distributed system of responsibilities and power sharing prevent from concentration of authority in few hands.The government gets stronger because there is a tenure and no fear of external interference.This promotes consistency in internal and external policies .But again it is not flawless.

The administrative powers lies with the President.He has the power to even veto any law passed by the legislative assembly.The president can't be deposed till his tenure is over.The president can't be impeached and only answerable to the people.but people can only use their power in the election to decide the fate of the president.

Hence both systems are not perfect and so far as Pakistan is concerned we have also tested the Presidential form but in vain.It is not a universal rule that if a system is successful in one country it would produce the same results else where.We ,the people of Pakistan, could not benefit from either forms.I think we require a new form matching the nature of the people.because the Parliamentary , Presidential and dictatorial form could not produce any results. ;)



Best Regards

The main disadvantage often quoted about a parliamentary system is the very indirect election of the executive, and in Republics this is compounded by the quite often direct election of the non-executive President.


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The Parliamentary form of government is characterized by ambiguous separation of power between executive and legislative branch. It clearly differentiated between head of government and head of state. Head of government is the Prime minister and head of state is the President.
[COLOR="Maroon"]Following are the demerits of this system:[/COLOR]

[SIZE="3"]- The head of government is not directly elected.
- There is no check on the legislative power of the parliament.
- people with popular community support can be prevented from becoming prime minister if they can not get elected to the parliament.
- Prime ministers can lose their positions if they lose their seats in parliament.[/SIZE]

In a country like Pakistan even the Presidential system will do no good. With one man at the helm of power and free from the scrutiny of Parliament (to some extent) he is bound to abuse power considering our national attitudes. In Pakistan I think we can reduce the mess and costs by getting rid of the position of President altogether and Senate too. We can do with a unicameral legislature since same parties are in Senate as well filling even seats of technocrats etc. and seats are sold by paying millions. It will mitigate some of the confusion regarding centers of powers.

The main things that are necessary for the success of any form of government in a democracy are the underlying pre-requisites as highlighted n the starting paragraph of the article like education etc.

In my subject-t0-criticism- opinion both the systems are good as no system is built on good intention. It is in fact the people with whom can we attach the meaning of good and bad. If the people are patriotic,sincere,people servig and accounted for the system could good. For example, Ayub Khan constructed a committee to examnie the underlying causes of the failure of the parliamentary demo of the first decade, and the causes cocluded were i one way or another indicative owards the above mentioned prerequesites.

What we need is democracy. It can be in any form; presidential or parliamentary. We should not tie democracy to one form of govt. two of the world's well-known democracies follow one of these forms; US follows presidential and UK follows parliamentary.

At a subjective level, we can find merits and demerits in both these forms of govt. i know i may sound strange when i say this but i think that the people who call for presidential system in Pakistan are those who would support a strong unitary and central govt (like a dictatorship, khilafat, oligarchy, etc).

Parliamentary form of govt puts certain checks and conditions and sets-up a system which these people find hard to follow. they want to govern as if governing was their divine right (just like Louis XIV).

I am in search of an answar to a question dominating my mind that why we all stick to the word democracy while we know that it is a total failure not only in Pakistan but across the whole Islamic word? A Philosophy which is against the sovereignty of Almighty on the earth can never be assimilated in the lives of true muslims. In my humble opinion we will have to search the substitute of this hypocrisy, which has become the benchmark of modernization and irreligiousity.

doing away with the Senate is not a plausible idea as well. this is the only house which ensures equal representation of all the provinces and if it were not there the majority of the few will result in the expounding the tensions that we have today.

[QUOTE=wajid582;162673]I am in search of an answar to a question dominating my mind that why we all stick to the word democracy while we know that it is a total failure not only in Pakistan but across the whole Islamic word? A Philosophy which is against the sovereignty of Almighty on the earth can never be assimilated in the lives of true muslims. In my humble opinion we will have to search the substitute of this hypocrisy, which has become the benchmark of modernization and irreligiousity.[/QUOTE]

First try to find an answer to the question that why is despotism more common in the Islamic world?