Democracy; A Pakistani Version

Democracy, if you are living in Pakistan, then you had heard this word many times from the politicians, anchor persons, civil society, lawyers and many others, I don’t know about others but I am damn sure our politicians(with exclusions) are not familiar with the actual concept of democracy.  There concept of democracy is to facilitate each others on there wrong doings for power sharing. Democracy should be addressed at the grass root level. Every political party in Pakistan have there own definitions of democracy, peoples party believes that power should be shared with all for limited time, so that we can enjoy power for five years. PML (N) understands that by showing week opposition in the houses and supporting the government through its all means, they are really playing a great role towards democratizing Pakistan; PML (Q) defines democracy as to be in power at any cost, with any means without any moral values. JUI wants partner of every govt. and needs three to four ministries, Jamat Islami thinks that the only agenda for democracy is to appose America at any cost and MQM needs power in Karachi and its adjacent localities to serve democracy in Pakistan at its best. 

Musharraf is considered and called a dictator in Pakistan by our politicians and our media, without out having or I should say without ample knowledge of democracy. According to the definitions of our political parties and politicians, Musharraf is a more democratic person than these so called democratic leaders. May be I am wrong, but in my own opinion Musharraf practiced best democracy in Pakistan than these. How? Let me explain…

The very generic definition of democracy is “Government of the people, for the people and by the people.The definition of democracy considered in Pakistan is Government of people having dual nationalities, for the people of there own caste and family to maximize there assets and by their family members to make a monarchy cum democracy. What kind of democracy is that? 

I have a particular question from PML (N) and PPP, Ch. Nisar Ali Khan and Makhdoom Amin Fahim; both are very senior politicians and representing their parties respectively. Could they become the party president or chairman in their life time? Have they carries enough courage to oppose the senior management on any issue? Is this democracy or Dictatorship? The dictator Musharraf, had given power to the gross root level through local governments. He empowers minorities and women in the country. He made a policy that there should be election process with in the party to choose the leadership. At least he tried to achieve democracy properly. And I must say that only Jamat Islami has an election process with in the party to choose its leadership, which should be admired.

If we recall the history for a while, Pakistan adopted the Govt. of India Act, 1935 with some changes as the interim Constitution, 1947. Unfortunately, Quaid-e-Azam Passed away early after the independence, he didn’t pay enough attention to democratization of Pakistan’s political system and it’s Parliament, because at early stages of a new born country; Quaid’s major focus was to ensure the survival of Pakistan from internal and external challenges. As we all Pakistanis know well; what were the circumstances at the time of independence. 

Pakistan inherited institutional imbalance right after the time of independence, bureaucracy {at that time Indian Civil Service (ICS)} and military were more organized and developed as compared to the political parties. All India Muslim League was the biggest party of the country, which led the independence movement successfully, but after separation, Muslim League was directionless, many of its senior leaders are at the other part of the region. The political decay and political derivation of Muslim League starts soon after separation. A huge percentage of Muslim League Leaders had feudal background and were motivated by feudal system rather than organizing the party for a direction and political awareness for the nation.

Besides this there are so many variations among different thoughts, direct democracy and indirect democracy are the two major methods for the democracy, furthermore there are a lot of changes and variations among different people and regions. If a state picks up any successful model implemented at any part of the world, with out customization to its local needs and traditions, model will definitely fail. Pakistan should use the blend of direct and indirect democracy; Direct in form of effective and efficient local governments and indirect in form of Parliament.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, I have some suggestions, 1) there should be a party elections for choosing the party leaders. 2) If a person wins from a particular area, there should be an accountability procedure for him, means after wining he hasn’t concern with the desires and wishes of the people of the said constituency, he should have to take the vote of confidence every year from the people of that area as well. 3) A person who has a dual nationality should be declared ineligible for the election process. 4) If a person or his immediate family has foreign assets, he will also disqualify from the election. 5) Local Government procedure should be adopted again for power sharing and involving people in decision making. 6) The role of state ministers should be eliminated from the cabinet and number of cabinet should also be reduced. 7) There is a huge need of think tanks, in this regard, every university should create a think tank which contains bright students and faculty members, who may take the review about the performance of ministries and ministers quarterly and the minister should have to clear the doubts and reservations of the think tanks. 

Now, I want suggestions from your side that how we can make best practices through proper democracy.