By: Shaukat Masood Zafar

Accoding to John Adams:

“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mold itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.”

Elections in our perception are supposed to affect everyone in the country, lift us up, give us hopes, and make us believe that all things are possible, that by the very act of elections and the spirit surrounding them, the world would be changed. But is this what elections do for Pakistan? Democracy is more than electioneering. It is fundamentally about delivering: helping people out of economic-financial deprivations; getting people out of fear and insecurity; creating sufficient employment opportunities, providing people protection and reassurance in their sense of belonging to a nation; providing social welfare to the masses, assuring people the power of political participation in national and local decision-making; arranging dependable and affordable infrastructure like electricity, gas, and roads, ensuring people the dignity of a nation’s independence and sovereignty of the country; serving people their rights to health, education, housing, jobs, livelihood, human rights, healthy environment; socio-economic mobility and so on. Democracy is also about the opportunities for people to participate in decisions between elections. It calls upon governments to ensure better living conditions for its people with tacit co-operation. It connotes equality of all persons in the state.

So far as current dispensation is concerned, it has been failed comprehensively to deliver. Our leaders assert that they are for the people but actually, they entertain their vested interest only. For democracy a culture of accountability has to be there, but non existent in Pakistan. The traditional model of representative democracy seems to have grown increasingly creaky in Pakistan. Democracy here now is in a failed and a flopped form. It has become just a slogan of exploitation in Pakistan and nothing else. Pakistani leaders are more interested in the votes than in the views of their peoples. They have not yet started putting the interests of their people above their own short term materialistic vanity. The principle of the rule of law, respect for the fundamental rights of man and the supremacy of the constitution has not been adhered to by our leaders. They don’t realize that the people’s vote is not a source of power, it is a responsibility.

The essence of democracy lies in the general will of the public.The present so called democracy in Pakistan, a result of NRO, fake degrees and 45% bogus voting, openly defying the Supreme Court’s orders time and time again and still somehow claiming to be democratic and ‘saving’ democracy is surely the biggest joke of this century. Our leaders neither repent their misdeeds, nor are they ashamed of lying, cheating, corruption and fraud. We have developed a culture in which moral and legal wrongdoers are treated with respect and honor and are given important positions in running of the country. It’s a feudal state where we are living and most of our political leaders are just feudal lords and they have assumed and established their identity as political leaders. Pakistan needs a different type of democracy suited to its own unique and peculiar politic-economic and socio-cultural context rather than mimicking western liberal democracy.

Present day politics in Pakistan mistrust the state and like western countries argue that society is likely to regulate itself if state interference is removed. The liberal political parties are of the view that society is too complex to be tampered with; and that the activities of the free market constitute the best protection of the rights of each individual. It is absolutely wrong approach, at least, to the extent of Pakistan where the market is easily tempered through cartelization. Production of many goods and services, extending from food items and cement to internet access and television so on, are dominated by just a few players in Pakistan. In fact U.S and UK are the major advocates of liberalism who impose it upon us. But just look into their own systems, political ideology in the U.S. held study in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives. Similarly, in UK a conservative Government that believes in the importance of social order is in place. According to their Beveridge report, that “if you do not give the people social reform they are going to give you revolution.” In fact capitalism has shown too many major weaknesses in the recent past. Social Democracy is more capable of granting citizens equal access to health care and higher education.

We are blindly following whatever is dictated by US and the West. Political party systems in our country have proved to be irrational, counterproductive, stopping sensible people from co-operating to achieve sensible ends. Just for power and political might, parties have created militant wings, given their workers weapons, essentially using terror to gain superiority and incite fear. Unfortunately most of our political leaders keep a domineering nature and the parties they lead have developed despotic characteristics in them. There is not a day goes by, or has gone by for the past years, in which we haven’t received further bad news of the markets and destructive actions of the monetary system due to wrong actions of our ruling elite. Pakistan needs to develop a new democratic model that should embrace inclusiveness and enable its citizens to fully and equally participate in all its governance systems. Let us learn the lessons of political courage, to think anew, to be prepared to lead and decide, and take calculated risks.

Many people are clearly tired of the ways of this liberal democracy in Pakistan, but why? Our leaders are not appalled by the scale of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, purchasing power and the living conditions of the people. They are not appalled to see children of source-less people selling on the streets instead of being in the classrooms. They are not appalled to see families including children sleeping rough on the streets of our beautiful capital Islamabad and provincial capital cities and scavenging for food while our leaders and their cronies frequent between five star hotels. They do not care about the dignity of the people they claim to be serving. Since independence they are asking the masses to sacrifice and even today they are still sacrificing, but anytime the people look at their leader and their circle of friends they see that their leaders are in a different suit, in a different four wheel drive, in a different hotel, and in a company of ladies surrounded by bodyguards.

The wrongdoers near and dear to their leader move around in expensive four-wheelers with heads held high. Nobody can dare to question their status. How many more years should the people continue to sacrifice and tighten their belts why the leaders and their cronies enjoy from people sweat? They cannot continue it any longer. The people of Pakistan ask Pakistan while being part of Indian sub-continent once called land of golden bird is why hungry today? The final conclusion people arrive at is that our leaders have plundered the resources ruined the country. Nor is there any democracy in Pakistan, other than some strange beast that has the paraphernalia and form, but not the substance of rule of, by and for the people. Instead it is of, by and for the corrupt ruling elite, who is only interested in self-aggrandizement.

It is not the democracy at fault! It is the systemic failure; we are also partially responsible for it. We waited for the Government to raise the literacy rate in the country, but even after 63 years of independence, we have a long way to go if we were to expect the government to do something about it! Democracy in this country is for the rich only. We, the 99%, cannot exercise democratic control over the institutions that most affect our lives. The electoral system is a sham. It is rigged to ensure the domination of the tiny ruling class. Our politicians are crazy for power, money and status, and this prevents those involved from telling the truth. If they are politicians, they are afraid that the party leaders will get annoyed and that they will then be sidelined or thrown out of the party and/or government. This compels them to remain quiet regarding all the wrongdoings they know of and become “yes-sir” persons. The power drunk and selfish politicians have hijacked power to their advantage against the wishes of the majority. Pakistani democracy has become, and amounted to intimidation and a declaration of war on both the people and the constitution. Well, a word to the wise is enough but remember that you can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

As for advocates of democracy who worship the “system”, it’s time to wake up. This is no democracy in any sense, it’s an excuse. Governance is invisible. Prices are rising by the day at unprecedented heights. Thousands daily circulate messages criticizing the present “democratic” government. Nothing in this democracy is democratic, and the government’s performance has been so miserable that people say they actually prefer the time of the dictator. Over the last few years, one question which has taken its rounds among the people of Pakistan has been – was the former General Musharraf better than this democracy? While people of Pakistan not big fans of dictatorship but they say it is hard to deny that Pakistan was at its most stable during military dictatorship. The people now want ‘sincere military generals to save the country from the corrupt politicians. The people acknowledge that during the Musharraf era, the economic conditions of that time appeared better – there were more jobs for the urban youth and business was better.

People are now discouraged by what they have observed in the last four years in the name of “liberal democracy”. They are tired of lack of access to education, health, energy, food, medicines, shelter and clothing. They demand better public services now. They are tired of corrupt practices and the looting of the treasuries by the present day leaders. The people now openly point out foreign bank accounts of leaders swollen with hundreds of millions of dollars, pounds and Euros while hundreds of millions of people in Pakistan live on one dollar a day. Now a social democratic system will have to be evolved and the principle of the democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice shall have to be fully observed. The deficits in nutrition, health, education, skills, infrastructure availability and provision are very large in Pakistan. Given the inequality in Pakistan, the burden of this welfare state will now have to be borne by the middle class and the rich in Pakistan instead of all time sacrifice of the poor.