The video of Senator Rehman Malik’s rebuke by the passengers of PK 370, irate over the two-hour delay in the departure of their flight to cater to the pelf and privilege of our ruling class, recently went viral on the internet, reinforcing mass antipathy with the pharoahnic ways of our parliamentarians and the existing state of our democracy. A little over a year ago, a picture laced in humility drew a similar frenetic response on the web. In it, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is casually standing in a public train and scanning a newspaper while the seated passengers, oblivious of his presence, enjoy their commute.
Alas, such glaring contrast is a bitter reminder that the current democratic transition in Pakistan, the fourth in our dialectic political history, remains far from being consolidated to become the ‘only game in town’ where the overwhelming majority of citizens attitudinally accept it as the best form of government.
Significantly, until that happens, the Damoclean sword of military intervention will continue to dangle over the veneer of any democratic dispensation in the country.
[quote]Democratic dividends can only be realized by citizens through a rule of law[/quote]
That the procedural aspects of our democratic system are in urgent need of reform is a given in the wake of all the political parties including the PML-N conceding to electoral irregularities in the last election. However, to consolidate the fourth wave of democracy in Pakistan and ensure its permanence through popular acceptance, it is critical for all the political stakeholders to conceptualize and develop it beyond its minimalistic electoral conceptions. No doubt, regular, free and fair elections are the bedrock of democratic legitimacy. But crucially, the dividends of democracy cannot be realized by competitive elections alone and depend on substantive dimensions that have thus far been ignored or swept under the rug by our elected representatives.
The first of these dimensions is an accountable and responsible government whose executive power is constrained by the autonomous power of other government institutions such as the parliament and other horizontal mechanisms of accountability. The second is devolution of power to make democracy more responsive to the simple, mundane and everyday concerns of the electorate. In the words of Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, ‘all politics is local.’ Critically, decentralization of power in Pakistan is not merely a matter of choice. It is, in fact, compelled by Article 140-A of the constitution whereby ‘each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.’
Perhaps most importantly, democratic dividends can only be realized by the citizens through a ‘rule of law,’ in which legal rules are applied fairly, consistently, and predictably across equivalent cases, irrespective of the class, status, or power of those subject to the rules. Under a true rule of law, all citizens have political and legal equality, and the state and its agents are themselves subject to the law. Lamentably, the entrenched ‘VIP culture’ in the country and constant abuses of power and influence such as the silencing, last week, of a teenage rape victim to indemnify the sons of a member of parliament, continue to corrode the fabric of our democracy by preventing us from achieving genuine rule of law securing the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens.
In the minds of the Pakistani electorate, the usual taxonomy of the country’s current democratic system cynically rotates from illiberal democracy to oligarchy to kleptocracy to pseudo democracy to dynastic democracy etc. This has no doubt enabled the PTI and PAT to strike a chord with a sizable section of the public and prolong their sit-ins while the ruling government and its allies desperately fumble in the dark for a compelling counter-narrative.
One had hoped that the longest joint parliamentary session in our history would be the occasion for providing a roadmap for democratic consolidation in the country along both procedural and substantive dimensions. Besides inspiring confidence in the electorate about the fruits of democracy, that may also have delivered an effective counter-narrative to the PTI and PAT’s protestations and facilitated a negotiated settlement of the prevailing political imbroglio.
As it is, in a throwback to the 1990s, the joint session quickly and fatally degenerated into a long drawn out exchange of personal score-settling and listless platitudes. To allay seething mass discontent, no condemnations of ‘VIP culture,’ let alone commitments to eliminate it, were even remotely voiced.
This has all enabled the political chaos to rumble on. And at the back of the PTI’s successful show of strength in Karachi, it will now be increasingly difficult to cajole Imran Khan to back down from his demand for the Prime Minister’s resignation.
Meanwhile, the exact fate of the consolidation of the fourth wave of democracy in Pakistan hangs in the balance.
The writer is a lawyer. He can be reached at as2ez@virginia.edu
Alas, such glaring contrast is a bitter reminder that the current democratic transition in Pakistan, the fourth in our dialectic political history, remains far from being consolidated to become the ‘only game in town’ where the overwhelming majority of citizens attitudinally accept it as the best form of government.
Significantly, until that happens, the Damoclean sword of military intervention will continue to dangle over the veneer of any democratic dispensation in the country.
[quote]Democratic dividends can only be realized by citizens through a rule of law[/quote]
That the procedural aspects of our democratic system are in urgent need of reform is a given in the wake of all the political parties including the PML-N conceding to electoral irregularities in the last election. However, to consolidate the fourth wave of democracy in Pakistan and ensure its permanence through popular acceptance, it is critical for all the political stakeholders to conceptualize and develop it beyond its minimalistic electoral conceptions. No doubt, regular, free and fair elections are the bedrock of democratic legitimacy. But crucially, the dividends of democracy cannot be realized by competitive elections alone and depend on substantive dimensions that have thus far been ignored or swept under the rug by our elected representatives.
The first of these dimensions is an accountable and responsible government whose executive power is constrained by the autonomous power of other government institutions such as the parliament and other horizontal mechanisms of accountability. The second is devolution of power to make democracy more responsive to the simple, mundane and everyday concerns of the electorate. In the words of Tip O’Neill, the legendary Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, ‘all politics is local.’ Critically, decentralization of power in Pakistan is not merely a matter of choice. It is, in fact, compelled by Article 140-A of the constitution whereby ‘each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.’
Perhaps most importantly, democratic dividends can only be realized by the citizens through a ‘rule of law,’ in which legal rules are applied fairly, consistently, and predictably across equivalent cases, irrespective of the class, status, or power of those subject to the rules. Under a true rule of law, all citizens have political and legal equality, and the state and its agents are themselves subject to the law. Lamentably, the entrenched ‘VIP culture’ in the country and constant abuses of power and influence such as the silencing, last week, of a teenage rape victim to indemnify the sons of a member of parliament, continue to corrode the fabric of our democracy by preventing us from achieving genuine rule of law securing the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens.
In the minds of the Pakistani electorate, the usual taxonomy of the country’s current democratic system cynically rotates from illiberal democracy to oligarchy to kleptocracy to pseudo democracy to dynastic democracy etc. This has no doubt enabled the PTI and PAT to strike a chord with a sizable section of the public and prolong their sit-ins while the ruling government and its allies desperately fumble in the dark for a compelling counter-narrative.
One had hoped that the longest joint parliamentary session in our history would be the occasion for providing a roadmap for democratic consolidation in the country along both procedural and substantive dimensions. Besides inspiring confidence in the electorate about the fruits of democracy, that may also have delivered an effective counter-narrative to the PTI and PAT’s protestations and facilitated a negotiated settlement of the prevailing political imbroglio.
As it is, in a throwback to the 1990s, the joint session quickly and fatally degenerated into a long drawn out exchange of personal score-settling and listless platitudes. To allay seething mass discontent, no condemnations of ‘VIP culture,’ let alone commitments to eliminate it, were even remotely voiced.
This has all enabled the political chaos to rumble on. And at the back of the PTI’s successful show of strength in Karachi, it will now be increasingly difficult to cajole Imran Khan to back down from his demand for the Prime Minister’s resignation.
Meanwhile, the exact fate of the consolidation of the fourth wave of democracy in Pakistan hangs in the balance.
The writer is a lawyer. He can be reached at as2ez@virginia.edu