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After signing the 18th Amendment bill, President Asif Ali Zardari confidently informed the nation that dictatorship had been defeated forever. According to him, now no undemocratic force would dare destabilize democracy in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani also had similar views to share with the people. He declared that the passage of the 18th constitutional amendment bill was just the beginning and Pakistan was well on its way towards a stable democratic polity.
That is all very well and those are noble words coming from the two men in charge of Pakistan's present democratic dispensation. But the question is that has democracy really taken roots in Pakistan and is the present government really a democratic one? Were this a truly democratic setup, would it offer a place of central significance to military chiefs? Are the sitting government's recent amendments a reflection of its seriousness in practicing democracy? Does a democratic government continue to engage in a tussle with the judiciary - one of the key pillars of a democratic state? Does the President of Pakistan, a symbol of unity of the state and the federation, continue to hold the post of party chief? And, most importantly, does the international community really believe that Pakistan has achieved democracy?
Whenever there is talk of democracy or the lack of it in Pakistan, the blame falls directly on the propensity of the military to interfere in the democratic process. Other factors that are cited are ethnic fragmentation, alienation of the smaller provinces and concentration of wealth and privileges among a few.
For all intents and purposes, all that is required for democracy to start rolling is the holding of elections, establishment of a parliament and installation of representative governments at the centre and in the provinces. In Pakistan's particular context, it is also important that the military sticks to its original task and does not interfere in the affairs of the government. Since this has all happened, why are we still groping for democracy?
Apparently, people are justified in asking as to what has really changed? They ask because democracy in its simplest and basic form is about giving people the right to elect their government. That has happened in Pakistan many times but the country continues to be limping towards a destination called democracy. Democracy creates stability and certainty in society by establishing a system under which governments can be created and changed peacefully. Once the public has given its approval to a political party to form a government, the latter enjoys political legitimacy and social support to manage public affairs and formulate and implement policies. The idea is to ensure fundamental rights, political equality and individual freedoms. It is the practical application of these concepts that determines the quality of democracy. And that is still a questionable domain where Pakistan is concerned.
After all, how can we be sure that we have succeeded in achieving any of these benchmarks of democracy in Pakistan? Why is it that despite the presence of an elected parliament and passing of legislation such as the 18th Amendment, questions are still being asked about the sort of democracy that we have achieved? The democracy we got as a result of the general elections of February, 2008 still does not appear to be credible enough.
There is no denying the fact that Pakistan's political leaders have made sincere efforts all along to establish real democracy in the country. The 1956 Constitution laid down that Pakistan would be a parliamentary democracy where the elected government would be answerable to the National Assembly. Unfortunately, this never happened. The Constitution was abrogated first in 1958 and again in 1969. It was also suspended on three occasions - 1977, 1999 and 2007. In fact, the parliament has never enjoyed real democratic power in Pakistan and has been mostly used as a rubber stamp. The result is that the political system has never been allowed to become strong and the doors have always been left open for military interventions. Every time when this happens, the military manages to hold power for more or less a decade and the nation is then again given a dose of democracy. However, since the 'democratic' intervals are short and unstable, the democratic process is hardly permitted to take root. In the absence of a stable political culture, healthy political conventions are not established and there is no respect for institutions and rule of law.
Ironically, while Pakistan has everything required to set up a working democracy, this has been a bridge too far for the country and all because its politicians have never risen above personal and party interests and have never subscribed to the supremacy of democratic institutions - a vital component for the growth of democracy. If the politicians had shown more responsibility and maturity in the past, political institutions would have had a better chance to develop and this would have warded off military adventurism.
The callous manner in which the judiciary has been treated is a case in point. Instances where sitting governments, whether democratic or otherwise, permitted the judiciary to function in an independent manner are hard to come by. The democratic leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, amended the constitution through the 5th and 6th amendments to rein in the superior judiciary. There was the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) of General Ziaul Haq; throughout his tenure, incumbents in the seat of the Chief Justice of Pakistan functioned in the "acting" status; and none of them were confirmed.
In 1994, when Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister, Justice Muhammad Ilyas was first elevated to the Supreme Court and then appointed as Acting Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court. This was done to use him for making political appointments in the judiciary. The landmark Supreme Court verdict in the famous Judges Case of 1996 came when some of these appointments turned out to be highly controversial. Nawaz Sharif even went to the extent of having his party goons launch an attack on the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, to stop the apex court from hearing a contempt of court petition against him.
Also worth noting in the series of interventions brought about to control the higher judiciary was Pervez Musharraf's Legal Framework Order (LFO) and then the PCO, under which only pliable judges of the superior judiciary were invited to take oath while the rest were sent home.
It is also unfortunate that two leaders who championed the cause of democracy so vociferously, namely Z.A. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, strengthened their positions by trying to control the army instead of lending power to political institutions. Both removed sitting service chiefs and appointed officers of their own choosing by scuttling the order of seniority. As it turned out, both were driven out of power by the very generals they had selected.
What was and continues to be bad about the democratic dispensations that have existed in Pakistan, during the short periods when the military was not running the country's affairs, is that poverty alleviation was never their forte. None of the democratic governments offered viable solutions to run the economy and their record in development of social sectors was always dismal.
Despite President Zardari's repeated mouthing of late Benazir Bhutto's dictum that 'democracy is the best revenge,' the people are losing faith in democracy. For all they care, ever since the country has entered the new democratic era, post 2008 elections, it has continued to slide swiftly downwards in all sectors. All that the country has reaped as fruits of democracy is galloping inflation, rising unemployment, tumbling exports, slow industrial and commercial growth, sky-rocketing food prices, vanishing basic amenities, energy scarcity and miserable governance.
However, there is no ground to lose hope. In the view of some political analysts, Pakistan may continue to remain a transitional democracy until it has had at least three peaceful transfers of power through elections. So, let's wait! We may continue to grope in the dark for some time but democracy is certainly not a bridge too far.
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