Pakistan Bulletin
An up-to-date and informed analyses of key issues of Pakistan.
Democracy in Pakistan: Linings Silver and Grey
July 2024
The state of democracy in Pakistan has both persistent challenges and opportunities for reform amidst a politically turbulent landscape.
It is no secret that democracy in Pakistan has been much mauled by frequent non democratic takeovers. Our most recent overt coup, by General Pervez Musharraf ended in 2008. Pakistan has relatively recently seen the first transfer of power between elected civilian set-ups. The fact that it had taken Pakistan around six decades to get there underlines the challenge facing the democracy project.
Since the 9/11 attacks, numerous initiatives by bilateral and other international donors to support democratic institutions and parliamentary development in the country have been in evidence. These have often taken the form of capacity building of elected representatives, including women and local government representatives, developing physical infrastructure, such as building parliamentary lodges, election reforms, and other measures aimed directly or indirectly at facilitating political and democratic development.
Like all else in life, occasionally reviewing the big picture and taking stock of how Pakistan’s democratic development is shaping up amid these measures would not be a terrible idea.
Per Abraham Lincoln’s oft-quoted definition, democracy and democratic representation are not worth the name unless acting in the interest of the people. Yet, for many a decade, these so-called political parties’ connection with the electorate has been transactional. It is no exaggeration that democracy in Pakistan today and for many, many years now, has been a synonym for the polling day. Once the votes are cast, the electorate and the promises made to them during elections, are conveniently forgotten, until the next polling day.
The political culture and landscape in the country has become murkier, and downright polluted, even over the last decade alone.
The sad truth is that rather than democratic institutions, most leading political parties in Pakistan today still require blind adherence to the leader, which then becomes the only way to progress. Political parties’ negative role is also evident in the way they compromise their electorates’ mandate to seek any route to power, actively soliciting establishment’s assistance to prop up their rule or help them govern. Once out of power, they protest when the same support has been shifted to an adversary. Leading mainstream parties have displayed an equally self-centric attitude towards devolution, obstructing transfer of power and authority to the grassroots via local government. This move has not only compromised governance, it also hinders capacity building of fresh political actors.
Of course, the political parties are not the only ones to blame, but no party should expect to be respected when it ambushes or has ambushed democracy by joining the so-called establishment, the judiciary or any other actor.
Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. Not without design, this democracy landscape in Pakistan plays out in a context where nurseries for democratic education are non-existent — student unions are absent, trade unions have been hounded into near extinction, and the main political parties have never had, or have long abandoned, any ambitions for creating a democratically aware cadre.
So where does all that leave the beleaguered electorate or the no-less-beleaguered state of political development and the role of donors’ assistance material and technical?
Firstly, all gifts and support from friends of Pakistan should be welcomed in the spirit that they are intended. Promoting democracy in another country can only be the gestures of true friends. But what is most needed, is adherence to democratic principles by our own stakeholders. For this, new ways of supporting the public to understand and engage complex governance structures and exercise their right to accountability, will have to be imagined.
For the political parties that wish to be on the straight and narrow, the path is straight forward really. They must indicate through their actions that they would no longer invite, collaborate with or tolerate unconstitutional schemes against democracy. They should also not let pettiness prevent them from owning up to past misdeeds.
This democracy landscape in Pakistan exists in a context where nurseries for democratic education are missing — student unions are absent, trade unions have been hounded into near extinction, and the main political parties have never had, or have long abandoned, any ambitions for creating a democratically aware cadre.
Support for reviving and capacity building of trade unions, student unions, grassroots political actors and broader civil society is critical to facilitating the nurseries of political development. Those backing democracy in Pakistan will have to imagine new ways to nurture democratic structures, as old ways have reached their limitation.
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