Can Pakistan ever see a true democracy?

[sardarzada11]

"One interesting aspect of Pakistan’s military rule is that the Army implements the democracy in its own terms. They pick and choose the bureaucrats, the landlords cum politician and even the judges of the highest civil courts who would show faith on army as a supreme power in the country and abide to follow the democracy on the direction of the military."


Historical facts show All India Muslim League failed to obtain support of the majority of Muslims in the Muslim-majority provinces till 1946 in United India. In the general election of 1937 the Muslim League could not achieve the prominent support from the Muslim voters in the Muslim-majority provinces. In Sind, Punjab, Baloochistan and Frontier where the landlord culture had been ruling, Muslim League could not obtain mandate from the people as the landlords in these states had not yet announced the support for then Muslim League.
When Pakistan was close to reality, the far sighted landlords started shaking hands with Mohammad Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan) to secure the survival of their command and culture.
In Punjab after realizing the situation the big landlords like Mumtaz Daulatana and Nawab Mamdot changed horses and joined the Muslim League. After the fateful Indian general election of 1946, most of the feudal class became the part of Muslim League and the forefront leaders of the Muslim League when Pakistan came into existence on 14th of August, 1947.
In Sind, the State was in the hands of changing coalitions of Muslim and Hindu landlords. Their social background was much the same as of the Unionists in Punjab. The big landowners’ families like Bhutto, Mukhdoom, Jatoi, Talpure felt the need of the time to join ruling Muslim League. Similarly, in the Frontier, Congress was in power until the creation of Pakistan and Baloochistan was too isolated in the political campaign.
Hence, the landlords of Sind, Punjab, Baloochistan and Frontier were the first gift to Pakistan with their traditional culture to Pakistan. They became the frontline politicians in Pakistani politics and politics became their family business. Since then the feudal culture is main the dominion of the country. No wonder Jinnah would have addressed the same occupiers of the country when he once said that unfortunately he had the bad coins in his pocket.
Pakistan where more than 60 percent territory is ruled by landlords and tribal leaders, the people have no freedom to cast their votes against the will of their masters. The election process in these areas is just a formality. The seats are claimed as their family legacy.
Securing a permanent role in the establishment, the bureaucrats prefer to compromise with the feudal system of Pakistan. They offer hands of friendship with the landlords cum politicians for mutual interest. This is the reason the top level positions in the administration of Pakistan are found occupied by the members of the same families. Just like landlords in politics, serving the top administrative positions is also their family business. In the last 50 years, the faces might have been changed but most of the bureaucrats belong to the same families who have been running the establishment since the creation of Pakistan.
In 1958, Field Marshal Ayub Khan gifted an army rule to Pakistan through the first Marshall Law in the country. He could have put to an end to the centuries old feudal and tribal system of Pakistan instead he preferred to share his power with the landlords. He also promoted the bureaucracy culture in the establishment. In his ten years of rule General Ayub Khan deeply rooted the bureaucracy and army culture in the country. He brought army officers in the civil bureaucracy. When he decided to shield his army rule with the customized democracy and reshaped Muslim League into conventional Muslim League he chose Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to be the frontline campaigner of his customized democracy (Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a foreign return barrister and a top level landlord of Sind being a son of Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto). Since then the army, bureaucrats and the landlords have been sharing the power in Pakistan whether it has been an army rule or a purported democratically run government.
In 1971, the people of Pakistan were, for the first time, given the chance to vote for a democracy in the country in a comparatively open political environment by another army dictator General Yahya Khan (he was the successor of Ayub Khan). With the exception of few Islamic cum political leaders, the same feudal class including the leader of the winning Pakistan People Party, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came up as a winning party from West Pakistan. Bhutto and his allies (feudal-cum-politicians) preferred to the split of Pakistan but did not accept majority-lead winning Shaikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman and his party Awami League in East Pakistan to rule West and East Pakistan in the government. Eventually, Bengalis separated East Pakistan and created their own country as Bangladesh. Army once again supported the Feudal of West Pakistan and swallowed the bitter separation of East Pakistan.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, following his political career developer General Ayub Khan, announced himself from role of Prime Minister to the first civil Marshall Law Administrator while he was trying to save his government from the country-wide anti-demonstration by the Islamic parties against his alleged rigging in the general election of 1977.
General Zia-ul-Haque who took over power from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto also ruled the country for over 10 years following Ayub Khan’s style democracy under the supremacy of army rule. Now current Ruler General Pervez Musharraf is running the country on the same principles.
One interesting aspect of Pakistan’s military rule is that the Army implements the democracy in its own terms. They pick and choose the bureaucrats, the landlords cum politician and even the judges of the highest civil courts who would show faith on army as a supreme power in the country and abide to follow the democracy on the direction of the military.
When one army dictator introduces a civil chap the other kick him out. Ayub Khan brought Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Zia ul Haque threw him out from the power and hanged him on murder charges. Zia ul Haque brought Nawaz Sharif who then became the prime minister. Pervez Musharraf threw him out not only from the power but from the country.
Now Pervez Musharraf is bringing Shaukat Aziz, a man who does not have any political background but is being introduced as a technocrat. One has to see who is going to end his story.
To satisfy the outside world, similar to the British Rulers in India before the partition of India, the army in Pakistan ran a parliamentary system with keeping the ultimate power in their hands. To legitimize their supremacy when required the constitution of Pakistan is changed through their employed parliamentary system.
The deep rooted strong army, bureaucrats and feudal relationship can be measured by analyzing the profiles of the people serving the top positions in the government whether as a bureaucrat or a minister or a CEO of any governmental body. One would find they have family relationships and business partnerships among each other. If not the same face but the member of the same family would be enjoying the role. Even the children of the military dictators joined the politics without having any political academicism. General Ayub Khan’s son Gohar Ayub became the foreign minister of the country. Eijaz-ul-Haq who has no political qualification except that he is an ordinary bank officer and the son of General Zia-ul-Haq, at present, he is holding a ministry in the present government.
Victimized by the unfair and favouritism culture many high-level professionals leave the country when they find opportunity overseas. With their outstanding skills and talent they earn a lot of name in their fields in different parts of the world.
As the technology progressed in the world, like other developing nations Pakistan is also required to be equipped with the needs of modern technology and their methods. The economist, educationist, IT specialists, environmentalists, criminologist, medical experts etc are found high in demand.
Exploring the demand, the long serving highly expert Pakistani expatriates especially in the west found their need in Pakistan. There was a significant portion of Pakistani foreign professionals who wanted to serve Pakistan sincerely and honestly. However, they found themselves mismatched in the corrupt system of Pakistani trica (bureaucracy, army and political pundits).
Yet, there have been professionals who found this dilemma as an opportunity. They are returning back to Pakistan by negotiating their high remuneration from the government in return. They are found ready to accept and compromise with the present setup of Pakistan. These professional are being awarded as “Technocrats” and the ruling trica is found welcoming and introducing them with high-fly slogans. Today, these technocrats are enjoying in the top portfolios in the government with top remunerations from the tax-payers money.
In 1993, an alien to Pakistan, a US citizen and a World Bank Financial Advisor Mr. Moin Qureshi was brought in Pakistan and appointed as the caretaker Prime Minister. His job was to get Pakistan out from the falling economy and rising debts of the International Monetary Funds (IMF). He was recommended by IMF.
President General Pervez Musharraf introduced a computer literate Dr. Atta-ur- Rehman to bring a revolution in Information Technology. He came to Pakistan with his outstanding ideas on IT Projects. He claimed that he would beat India and make Pakistan at par with the West in information technology. No one was talking about the growing need of the power and electricity but Dr. Atta was given enormous funds in producing an IT revolution in Pakistan. The outcome of his pre-matured revolution brought a social change in almost every city of Pakistan. One finds internet café everywhere where youth and children who spend hours playing video games, chatting and watching dirty sites.
Another US citizen, a financial expert has been introduced as a high-level economist by President Musharraf with the claims of bringing a revolution in Pakistani economy. The person who has never been involved in the politics and never stayed much in Pakistan since his professional career a banker, is being legitimized by making him a parliamentarian through the an engineered election process.

plz pray,
Sardarzada

[humayun "The King"]

It is difficult to say that pakistant will ever see a true demoracy. Beause army rules in this country. But i think the fault lies on the hands of politicians also, beacuse they do something realy wrong which gives oppurtunity to army to come in power.Like what is nawaz sharif was doing"donot want to go in detail" .If we make our instituions strong enough it will result in flourshing of demoracy in our country.For example look at your archrival India which have the stringest democracy in the world beacuse of strong instituions.

[sardarzada11]

"...opportunities for a fair governance, true democracy and civil society in Pakistan can only flourish when democratic practices are allowed to prevail under the supremacy of unchanged constitution."


To understand the shortcomings in the governance and the democracy in Pakistan, one must find explanations for the weaknesses in political tolerance and identity. Analytically, there appear to be sets of reasonably autonomous and enduring beliefs and values within Pakistan that have important consequences in the societal and ultimately political spheres. Popular expectations of authority, in particular toward those who govern, must be understood and presumably altered if Pakistan is to realize the kind of system that permits a sustainable democracy. Legal provisions and better people seeking public office are important, but progress in building civic virtue or civic spirit will also have to occur. In the absence of such a culture, factional anarchy and authoritarian rule remain thrive.
Historically, the political culture in Pakistan is a strong product of its past that links to the pre-partition British Rule. What Pakistan's leaders knew best from this inheritance was the so-called viceregal system that made little or no provision for popular awareness or involvement. The system was designed to rule over a subjected population and intended to keep order and collect taxes. In fact, what the British bequeathed was often a contradiction between theories of governance and their practices. Ideals of representative government and equality before the law were incomplete transformations. The territorial issues and border conflicts with India, the socio-cultural differences within the country, struggle for a share of power between the states and the early death of the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah are those realities which not only politicized the policy-making elites and their willingness in introducing the fair democratic procedures but also encouraged the non-democratic elements including the army. Consequently, even after half a century the country could not get cleaned from the feudal, tribal and punchayat systems and sectarian segregations and the public has been left untutored in the kind of vigilance usually needed to hold political leaders accountable.
Pakistan was without a formal, written constitution until 1956. The democratic myths that so often sustain a system were thus only weakly instilled, and precedents were created that undermined those few parliamentary and democratic norms that could be drawn upon. It did not help that in the early years non-party prime ministers were appointed by the head of state rather than by those who had to appeal to an electorate. Mass involvement in politics, if defined by rallies and periodic opportunities to vote, certainly increased over the years. Street demonstrations helped to bring down governments, namely Ayub's in 1968, Yahya Khan's in 1971, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's in 1977. Yet while these actions strengthen feelings of efficacy, none can be easily equated with democratic processes.
The weakness of democratic practices in Pakistan can be explained in many ways. Some observers stress constitutional and electoral provisions among institutional factors said to have undermined responsible and responsive government. Others point to the quality of Pakistan's leadership over most of Pakistan’s history, namely, that Pakistan has been let down by unprincipled political figures motivated by raw ambition, material gain and vested interests.
The subsequent education of people to accept democracy through meaningful participation in their political affairs is minimal. Without wide public awareness and an effective public opinion, the political system gives wide berth to ambitious and corrupts political leaders. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the two times democratically elected prime ministers, are the perfect examples of the corruptions at the leadership level. Instead of including a broad citizenry in the political process, power is concentrated in the hands of an elitist bureaucracy and over-ambitious military. The country's semi-feudal system with its sets of obligations and hierarchy provided similarly inhospitable soil for building a democracy. The traditional power brokers, the wealthy, large land-holding families, are prepared to give their allegiance to anyone who promised to protect their material interests and way of life.
The civilian government succumbed to military rule that sought to legitimize itself with the public by attacks on democratic ideals and political institutions in hopes of leaving them in disrepute as well as decay. Despite the revival of democracy from time to time, it is predictably held in suspicion. One of the tenets of civil society, the concept of a legitimate opposition, naturally won little acceptance among competing political elites or within the larger public. These outpourings marked a breakdown in law and order, and reflected above all an absence of trust in authority. Such anomic movements may have heralded demands for better representation but in themselves were more the signs of frustration and anger than of belief in a more pluralistic, tolerant political system.
The election of 1970, the first to be held on the basis of universal suffrage, appeared to be a watershed for democracy. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto -who was the creation of a military ruler, Ayub Khan - provided the strongest hope for a politics that would involve the masses and socialize them to democratic and socialist ideals. The mass mobilization of the electorate by his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) succeeded in communicating with many rural voters. People listened to Bhutto and other political leaders not only at rallies but over radio and television. The issues of the day were articulated forcefully and clearly, such that voters had meaningful choices to make. And these masses demonstrated that they could throw off, if it really served their interests - the feudal assumptions that usually shaped their attitudes and actions. Yet rather than build up his popular movement on the democratic ideals of supremacy of the people, in power Bhutto shed much of the regime's populist ideology and strongly personalized his rule rather than working through participatory institutions and educating the public to their value. By his 1977 re-election campaign, he had come to rely on feudals and discarded many of the political allies who had stood with him earlier. Above all, Bhutto had failed to deliver the fair governance and a true democracy. While he had opened up for the future the possibility of more participatory politics, the civic virtues that would be needed to buttress it were in the end discredited.
Pakistan could indeed become a crucible for determining whether extensions of democratic practice are likely to provide a successful means of accommodating militant Islamic political movements. The country's experiences suggest that militant Islamic parties may be moderated when given a democratic option - an honest opportunity to compete. The popularity of Islamic parties in many cities and towns, according to this reasoning, is largely of a protest variety, coming from the denial of a more open political process. However, many analysts also seriously question the compatibility of Islamic doctrines with more liberal conceptions of democracy. Very likely the best reason to insist on the appropriateness of democratic values and institutions is that, from an ideological-constitutional standpoint, democracy does not represent an alien goal. Pakistan was founded on many of these precepts, and as ideals they continue to resonate widely. Such basic ideas as representative government and rule of law remain part of the Pakistani society's aspirations for itself. To be sure, there has been a rejection at the emotional level of some aspects of western culture and disgust with secular political institutions. Replacement with authentic Islamic institutions is the widely accepted ultimate objective. The kind of civil society and underlying culture appropriate for Pakistan should not be expected to mimic western experiences. Any democracy in Pakistan will have to take into account certain Islamic prescriptions and other legacies. Experiencing and mixing western democratic system with Islamic laws will continue to create more loopholes in the ruling mechanism.
In general, opportunities for a fair governance, true democracy and civil society in Pakistan can only flourish when democratic practices are allowed to prevail under the supremacy of unchanged constitution. The repeated dismissal or overthrow of elected regimes, alterations in the constitutions that suit to existing ruler, leaves no positive memory and little chance for institutions to adapt and supportive values to root.
Though the elections sometime are tainted by design or overzealous officials, the regular elections will ultimately provide democratic practices to the contestants in which losers accept defeat and winners are magnanimous in victory, the greater the chances for an electoral process capable of surviving inevitable challenges. The inefficient and incapable politicians may continue to participate and seek power but the people of Pakistan will also learn and understand better the democratic values and responsibilities over the period.


plz pray,
Sardarzada