Elite democracy
 

Elite democracy
Farrukh Saleem

Out of the 30 million families in Pakistan about 3,000 families have taken part in the past nine elections. Election 2013 would, in essence, be an intra-elite competition

Are we becoming a ‘representational dictatorship’? After all, there have been nine elections over the past 42 years but the same families have continued to return to power and rule the land of the pure.
There are 30 million families in Pakistan and of the 30 million there are no more than 3,000 families who have taken part – over and over again – in the past nine elections to occupy the 100-dozen seats in the provincial and the national assemblies. Election 2013 would, in essence, be an intra-elite competition.
Elections in 1970, 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008 have established a “narrow elite that have organised society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it....The losers have been the [Pakistani] people....”
Elections in 1970, 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008 have established two more things: exclusionary politics and ‘extractionary institutions’. Look at PIA, Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Steel Mills, Pakistan Electric Power Company, Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation and the Utility Stores Corporation. All these entities exist, in essence, to extract Rs100 crore per day from the masses to benefit the elite.
Elections in 1970, 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008 have established three more things: Pakistani men – and women – getting rich via corruption not by hard work; money flowing towards those who ‘deal in favours not in goods’; and laws that protect the predators not the preyed.
Why is Pakistan poor? According to the World Bank’s poverty headcount ratio, 108 million Pakistanis are at $2 a day; 60.2 percent of the total population. It is not because our rulers do not know the right policy mix that would make Pakistan rich but because every political – and economic – entity in the country has been deliberately, under a conscious plan, organised to benefit the elite.
It’s a myth that Pakistanis are free to elect whoever they want. After all, one cannot really become a real contender in an election unless one has the required prerequisites – tons of money, time and connections.
Dr Mughees Ahmed in ‘Voting behaviour in rural and urban areas of Punjab’, after scrutinising the results of elections held in Faisalabad in 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997 and 2002, discovered that only candidates from five biradaris – Jatt, Rajput, Arain, Baloch, Gujar and Kharal – had ever won elections.
It’s a myth that our political leaders enjoy ‘popular support’. On average, six million votes are polled in urban areas and 30 million in rural areas.
To be certain, almost all rural votes are based on dharas – and dhara votes have everything to do with redistribution of patronage and very little to do with popular support of the candidate or his political party.
Remember: of the 193 member-states of the UN, around two-thirds are operational democracies. For the record, Pakistan’s first-past-the-post electoral system exists only in Britain and Britain’s ex-colonies. The rest of the democratic world has adopted electoral systems other than first-past-the-post.
To be certain, democracy is the only form of governance that has solutions to our problems – but not ‘elite democracy’.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: farrukh15 @hotmail.com.
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh