Ali khan, professor of law at Washburn University (USA), discussing the power of non-elected individuals in recent example of judges’ restoration said that,
“The Coalition chiefs, Asif Ali Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif, are not themselves members of the Parliament. Yet they - and not the Parliament - hold the ultimate power to make decisions. In matters relating to the restoration of judges, the National Assembly has been kept out of negotiations. Instead of debating the judges' issues openly on the floor of the National Assembly, the Coalition chiefs debated the issues in secret in a hotel in a foreign country. Even Pakistan's Prime Minister, presumably the strongest person under the Constitution, was left out of the deliberations. Just as the Prime Minster under the Musharraf regime was no more than a deferential pawn, so is the new Prime Minister under the Coalition government” (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1140669)
Similarly today the so-called democratic system in Pakistan, the power has gravitated toward Asif Zardari, the PPP Chief, who is not even an elected member of the Parliament exercising dynastic powers that he inherited from his wife Benazir Bhutto. The Prime Minister, supposedly the head of the government, is serving as a loyalist subordinate. Most important, the National Assembly, where Zardari and Sharif’s parties have a solid majority, is waiting for party bosses to issue orders, from outside the Parliament, on what needs to be done in the Parliament. From this we can see that actually power does not lies with the elected body but with someone else who is not even an elected person. Yes, theoretically power is with elected prime minister but practically this does not happen.
Military has a major role in politics of Pakistan. Military got great importance in Pakistan due top fragile security situation on the borders since independence. General Ayub was the first military dictator who took over government in 1958. After him General Yahya, General Zia and General Musharaf followed his footsteps and they ruled Pakistan more than thirty years. According to Rasul Baksh Rais, a political analyst says
“The democracy in Pakistan has been hampered by the troublesome legacies of the military regimes and concentration of wealth and privilege among the class co-opted by the dictators”
Pakistan military has become a crime syndicate and a business mafia that completely occupies the social, political and economic power in Pakistan. This institution is the largest stake holder in all business of Pakistan from real estate to manufacturing of cereals (only cereal Production Company in Pakistan). How can be there a true functional democracy in presence of strong military institution that has more social, political and economical power in Pakistan? This is also the reason why it’s very easy for a military dictator to adjust himself in power after throwing the elected government. GHQ (General Head Quarters) is becoming more influential and the role of elected representatives is diminishing day by day. That is why, the bid to take military dominated spy agency ISI, under civilian control, was rejected by military establishment last year.
“Pakistan military has the biggest share in Pakistan's stock exchange. It operates commercial bank, airline, steel, cement, telecom, petroleum and energy, education, sports, health care and even chains of grocery shops and bakeries.
In short, the military’s monopoly is present in every sector of Pakistan economy”
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There is a saying that “Every country has Army, but Pakistan Army has a country”. In every dictator’s era thousand of army personals are appointed on civilian positions. For example Major General Pervez Akmal (MD OGDC); Brigadier (Retd) Rizvan Ashraf (General Manager OGDC); Major General (Retd) Hamid Hassan Butt (Chairman Pakistan Railways) were on civilian positions during Musharaf ‘s ten years rule.
According to “The South Asian”
“Besides tens of thousands of Army Men working in government-owned airline and other government-owned industries many Army Officers were in Civilian Govt. Departments and Government owned industries and civilian institutions of Pakistan including Universities. Pakistan should be called "Army Inc."
The induction of army personal into civilian institutions further derailed democracy. This greatly affected the functioning of democracy as all institutions and departments were administrated by army for a long term. This is the main reason why democracy is unable to take roots in Pakistan. Democratic values are vanished from the society and there is not true a democracy in Pakistan. Unless and until military has these powers there can not be true democracy in Pakistan.
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In democracy everyone has right to raise and flourish his ideas and to serve the society by becoming an elected representative. In Pakistan the practice of dynasty politics and feudalism goes against the principles of democracy. Dynasty politics means a sequence of rulers from same family. The existence of feudalism and dynasty politics is related to the history of Pakistan. The area now called Pakistan was mostly run by landlords and feudalists and after creation, the generations of same landlords are ruling Pakistan. M. S. N. Menon wrote in “The Tribune News Paper” that
“There are more profound reasons for the failure of democracy. And it has to do with Pakistan’s genesis. The region of Pakistan was notorious for its feudal and tribal background. It provided soldiers to the British Empire. Naturally, the British extended special patronage to these feudal elements”.
(http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20021018/edit.htm#5)
Let us see today’s political situation of Pakistan in context of dynasty politics. The PML-(Nawaz) and Peoples Party are two mainstream parties having roots all over Pakistan. PML-(Nawaz) is run by Sharif brothers. Bhutto’s political dynasty was initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then his daughter Benazir Bhutto was the head and now based on Benazir’s last wish, Pakistan people’s party named her teenage son Bilawal, and her husband, Asif Zardari as its leaders. This tells us the lack of intra party democracy. Dynasty politics disables common person or middle class person to participate in political process. This is against principles of democracy which ensures the right of participation of all individuals in political process.
Pakistan’s more then 60 percent population lives in rural areas. The political structure in rural areas is very different from urban areas. The feudalistic approach helps feudal to get the vote in the rural areas very easily. They are completely depoliticized. According to Imran Khan, a cricketer-star-turned-politician
“Rural politics and urban politics are completely different: the rural population has been depoliticized, and votes for the individuals (feudalists)”.
In an article of “the Wall Street Journal” by Yaroslav Trofimov, writes about the dynasty politics in Pakistan by comparing three MNA’s (Members of national assembly) said that
“The incumbent lawmaker, Faisal Saleh Hayat, 52 years old, won three of the past six parliamentary races here. His challenger, Abida Hussain, 61, won the other three. Raza Ali Bokhari, 38, is campaigning for the first time, as a self-described candidate of change and all three are cousins.”
This often makes elections in Pakistan a clash of egos rather then issues, stifling debate and preventing newcomers of lesser breeding from breaking onto the scene. This explains the reason why democracy has not taken roots in the Pakistani society since independence
The middle class, who should have a greater role in Pakistani politics like India, can not come forward in politics due to strong barrier of dynasty and feudalism. If new faces are unable to come in mainstream politics and every time same people are elected from same families to rule then this is not a democracy. It can be called as civilian dictatorship. If we go into details then I would say that Pakistani society has always been undemocratic. The undemocratic forces rule here-with or without elections in shape of military persons, feudalist and dynasty politics.
Democracy, ultimately, means that people should have right and ability to impact the decisions that will impact them. People in Pakistan have no such rights .for example let us take the power crisis .the people are facing electricity crisis for the last three years and this so-called democratic government has passed more then 2 years in power but the situation is worsening day by day. People can not do any thing as they have no rights .the electricity tariffs are very high.
Unfortunately, the PPP and PML remain ‘path dependent’-sticking to dynastic politics, internally non-democratic, not letting parties to evolve into institutions and remaining incapable of transcending individual human desires and goals.
The weakness of the political institutions in Pakistan is one of the major reasons for the weakness of democracy. This weakness gave the possibility and may be the compulsion to the army to step in at certain points in the history of the Pakistan state when in a crisis situation the political government turned out to be not strong enough to deal with a situation or when a government tried to encroach on the power of the army.
By having elections, prime minister and assembly we can not claim that there is democracy. These are necessary but not sufficient. Implementation of Democracy needs much more then these requirements. In order to have democracy in Pakistan, all power should lie with elected representatives. Dynasty and feudalistic practice should be discouraged and most importantly the role of military should be minimized politically and economically. Political parties should have intra party democracy so that they can flourish an institution rather then becoming a “One Man Show”. Unless and until we do not follow above steps, we can not have real democracy and we will always be stuck in this question “Is there democracy in Pakistan or not”.