Is there Democracy in Pakistan?

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IS THERE DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN

“The army in Pakistan has announced the dismissal of the government after seizing control of key installations across the country” BBC reported on 12th of October 1999. Pakistan has a worst social and political setup since its independence.

Some of the most important changes in the world since late eighteenth centaury, like  the policy of “glasnost” (transparency) in the former Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin wall, the fall of soviet union and social and political changes in the  world have made the representative democracy as the most appropriate political system in the world. Due to this many countries of Europe and most important most of the developing countries adopted democracy as the base of their political setup. After British left from Indian subcontinent, the representative democracy was adopted in         South Asia. Pakistan, a developing country, also adopted this democratic setup. The history of democratic system in Pakistan is very complex and difficult to interpret. People do ask many questions regarding the existence of democracy in Pakistan. Some say there is democracy in Pakistan and some say there is not, but in my view Pakistan does not have a democratic system.  Before going into the issue of existence of democracy in Pakistan we must see the basic and precise definition of “Democracy”.

According to the Abraham Lincoln (16th President of USA),

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

So, a system in which people elect their representatives and then these elected members make rules and regulations that ensure justice and respect of rights of individuals is called Democracy. In Pakistan, many people believe that democracy is there in Pakistan. They support their argument by saying that we had elections; we have national assembly working properly with its prime minister, constitution and mainstream political parties, so we have democracy in Pakistan. They are right that we have all structural components of democracy in Pakistan but we would have to see; is democracy properly functional in Pakistan or not and the answer is “No”. Working of democracy is more important than structure of democracy. The best way to safeguard democracy is to make democracy work. Functioning (working) of democracy means that, there is justice, protection of individual rights, service to the people and the power to rule is with elected representatives in the society. Existence of democracy in a society is measured by the functioning of democracy. In India and USA democracy is functioning but not in Pakistan.

As per definition of democracy, democratic institutions should have the sole power in running the government as people elect them. The assembly which is elected body should have all the power in a democratic system but this is not the case in Pakistan where there are multiple corridors of power. In the history of Pakistan the elected representatives were never given fair chance to rule. The constitution of Pakistan itself gives more power to (indirectly) non-elected person then to elected person in the assembly. For example the highly discretionary power built in the constitution is Article 58(2) (b) (which gives power to president to dissolve national assembly). In 1996, a civilian President invoked Article 58(2) (b), dissolved the National Assembly, and dismissed Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's democratically elected government. Thus the constitution itself does not obey the basic principles of democracy by not giving complete power to elected members of national assembly. If elected representatives do not have power to rule then we can not say that there is democracy in Pakistan.

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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 ...

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