English Essay:
Topic: Democracy in Pakistan: Hopes and Hurdles.
1. Introduction
What is Democracy?
Democracy, according to the modern definition, is a way of governing the country in which the citizens can take part in the elective procedure of representatives who will run the government afterward. Although there are some age restrictions on taking part in the elective procedure in many countries – like in Pakistan where you can exercise voting after turning 18, there is such a balance in the democracy that no single person holds the power to change the odds. So it’s rather a right of masses to decide.
History of Democracy in Pakistan:
Pakistan was established on the ideology of Muslim motherland but it is often disregarded that one of the key ideologies of the establishment of Pakistan was a democracy. Pakistan is still a democratic parliamentary republic in constitutional terms as the electoral system is practiced in Pakistan. However, the country is widely regarded as one of the most politically disturbed ones because of so many deviations from democracy in the past. Pakistan has seen several military coups since its creation and political uncertainty is seen more often due to variations in the past.
2. Military rule:
There have been several attempts of military coups in the history of Pakistan since 1951 but not all of them were successful. However, three successful attempts led to an era of military rule beginning just 11 years after the creation of the country in 1958 when Iskandar Mirza – then Major General, announced a coup after dismissing the assembly. He was then replaced by Ayub Khan shortly after being appointed as the chief martial law administrator.
There was another successful coup attempt in 1977 when General Zia ul Haq overthrew the Pakistan National Assembly and dissolved all the provincial assemblies in an operation called “Operation fair playâ€. General Zia ordered custody of all the top political leaders of the country at that time – including Mr. Bhutto and the leaders of Pakistan National Alliance. His rule is regarded among the strictest ones in promoting religious movements and demolishing the democratic movements.
There have been another enforced but bloodless coup just two decades ago in 1999 by the Chief of army staff General Pervez Musharraf who ceased the functioning government of publicly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Tensions between the Prime minister and chairman joint chief of staff led to the military coup when Gen Musharraf wasn’t allowed to land after his official visit to Sri Lanka – loyal officers of Pakistan army didn’t accept orders of newly appointed army chief of staff and arrested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
3. Renewals of democracy:
Pakistan has always managed to take up a democracy after every military coup by forming a large struggle each time. Political decisions of democratic representatives have long been refused to accept since the Kashmir war between Pakistan and India when then army commander-in-chief General Gracy and air force commander-in-chief Air Vice Marshal Richard Atcherley didn’t follow orders of Pakistan’s first Governor-General Mr. Jinnah.
There was a successful democratic uphold in 1951 when a military coup attempt by Major General Akbar Khan was foiled. The hope of democracy rose once again after a long era of military rule by Gen. Ayub Khan when Field Marshal Ayub Khan was accused of failing the Kashmir Mujahideen Movement just after the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and then after 1965 Indo-Pak War in 1970 elections.
There was a chance of fresh democracy after the death of long-ruling General Zia ul Haq in 1988 and it was so. There were numerous publicly elected governments after that till the coup of 1999 led by General Musharraf. After the issuance of pardon to Nawaz Sharif by then Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf and legalization of 1999 coup by the Supreme court of Pakistan, there was a slight hope of things changing a bit towards democracy. But that became certain when the right groups inside Pakistan labeled the referendum held by Gen. Musharraf as fake. Pakistan Muslim League challenged the results of the referendum but their claims were rejected by the Supreme Court.
4. Hopes for democracy:
Qaed was strongly in favor of democracy as he was mentioned too many times saying that Pakistan will have a democratic system in which people would be free to elect their leader. Hopes for the development and continued democracy are very high due to the optimistic ongoing civil-military relations in Pakistan. People are learning to choose what they stand for and what they need from a leader and that is a sign of transition towards a permanent democracy. People are becoming increasingly aware of the tactics used by previous governments and they prefer those who, in their minds, is the real savior of democracy in Pakistan. However, there is still a space of improvement for far off areas of Pakistan where the literacy rate is low so they can be manipulated into thinking about anti-democratic agendas.
Accountability is improving in Pakistan since the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance of 1999 and National Accountability Bureau is active against any government or local official who is a defaulter or is under suspicion on such charges. The mutual intelligence sharing of different law enforcement agencies and the National Accountability Bureau has boomed in recent years so it is easy to say that history can be avoided to repeat itself in the matters of accountability.
Recently in 2017, Election Reforms Bill was passed in Pakistan by the constitutional national assembly which will be the leading hope for continued democracy in Pakistan as it strengthens and increases the role of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by providing autonomous and legal right even before and after the elections. This act is functional since 2017 and it will be a solid hope for the fair elections in Pakistan first of which will be in 2018. It is a general perspective in Pakistan that the foul elections would be the fall of democracy and history has proved it but now with election commission monitoring every activity during elections with greater strength, there is a very optimistic vibe for fair elections.
There wasn’t enough settling time for democracy after the martial laws in the previous times but now a second publicly elected government is set to complete its tenure and that is a great reason to think of safe future for democracy in Pakistan. No threat from the armed forces is yet active for democracy and militant organizations that were in favor of military rule have also been banned and eliminated to some extent. There have been many attempts of a coup in Pakistan just because of civil-military conflicts but times are changing now because Pakistani armed forces have never been so in favor of democracy as now. The political system in Pakistan is stable since the PPP government and it looks like it’ll continue to be the case in the future too.
Constitutional crisis in Pakistan has been a reason for riots, chaos, coups, and protests in the past but now Pakistan has a great functional constitutional system. Although there have been some corrigenda in the constitution of 1973 that reflect the immediate response of the judiciary system towards the changing needs in law. People trust the justice system and there are near to none cases of disobedience of court orders recently. Supreme Court of Pakistan is taking promising measures to ensure the robust and unbiased justice served to every citizen of Pakistan. Functional judiciary system points toward the thriving democracy while a failed justice system leads to the end of it and Pakistan is on the thriving road if looked justly.
One of the key roles of Former President Gen. Musharraf was the implementation of local level government in which the locals can take part in the elections of union councils which then manage the needs of locals and the development of local infrastructure. This resolved the issue of overdeveloping state-level structure and not involving locals in the authoritative decision-making process. It is as good as the democracy gets and because of the implementation of this idea, a lot of improvement in the democracy is seen in Pakistan – the scale of which is higher than during most of the history of Pakistan.
Illiterate leaders always fail to take mature decisions in the dynamic world and thus cannot guarantee fair play before, during and after the elective procedure. Illiteracy of Pakistani leaders has always been a problem for democracy because of less knowledge about the importance of democracy but now young, energetic, and educated leaders are coming forward which hold promising future for both democracy and development of Pakistan. One such example of educated leaders is current Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who is an engineer.
5. Hurdles in Democracy:
Since the start, there is one main hurdle in the development and revival of democracy in Pakistan and that is civil-military relations. There are still chances of coups in the future if the military and elected government do not cooperate in a good fashion. Lack of democracy always fills with a greater influence of military involvement in the matters of government and that leads to permanent control of a publicly elected government.
The literacy rate must be escalated quickly in order to maintain a peaceful culture of democracy in Pakistan because people need to understand the importance of democracy and its benefits towards the whole country. At least the current elected government should focus more and more on the development of minds by educating people and then letting them choose the right decision. That way, there’ll be no political tensions as the people will learn to elect those who are beneficial to both the country and the nation.
Politics of Pakistan is not what it used to be because of the remains of military teachings in the minds of today’s political leaders. It is changing gradually but political decision making among even the top Pakistani politicians is biased so the key factor of non-democratic forces taking the advantage is still out there which can lead to the demise of struggled democracy. There is a dire need of right decisions from the representatives of government because history has given us this lesson that the political instability arises due to bad decisions of reigning governments.
Corruption is also a great factor which plays an important role in the ousting of democracy. People demand military rule when either they don’t see any development or they see a great increase in corruption in the government. One such example is of Nawaz Sharif, the three-time elected prime minister. His government has been overthrown two times due to suspicion of corruption. So corruption in any department is a bitter hurdle in Pakistan’s democracy. Corruption can be stopped however by issuing strict verdicts and it is a national obligation for both government and Supreme Court to counter corruption.
When a government fails to provide justice to the citizens, there is a greater chance of people getting out of their homes and protest. When that happens, riots emerge from every corner of the country and eventually, the military has to take control of the governing body in their hands. There will be no such incidents and eventual ending of democracy if the government keeps its promises and provide timely justice to its citizens.
Mr. Bhutto was able to rise up with a huge following because of his motto – Food, Cloth, and House. That was just because humans crave these basic needs and they prefer basic needs over even national interests sometimes especially in Pakistan where poverty is one of the largest issues since its creation. Because of that, the elections can be manipulated by illegal campaign money which could be donated as charity to the poor masses in order to drive them into ticking the desired sign on the ballot paper. It’s obvious that there will be protests by both the actual literal society who had voted and the losing party which will not be settled until the military gets involved and that too can lead away from democracy. The same case would occur if the justly elected parliamentary government fails to provide basic needs to the people, this time having to face more resistance from the opposition too. So poverty and lack of provision of basic needs is amongst the deadly hurdles in the democratic future of Pakistan.
Accountability is important for the continued support of people in any country and Pakistan is no exception. Democracy demands that the voice of masses must be heard whether it is for their rights or it is for the accountability of the elected members of government whom the nation trusted. Pakistan has a dark history in this matter where accountability wasn’t forced to be practiced even for the highest-ranked officials. Recent role of National Accountability Bureau in the case against Nawaz Sharif and other elected members of Pakistani Parliament is a good sign but no one is sure about the future as the history schools Pakistanis not to be so optimistic when it comes to accountability of officials. There are hundreds of case studies in Pakistan showing that lack of accountability has always loosened the influence of government. And it is a well-known fact that when the government loses control, the anti-democratic forces start to gain too much influence which eventually leads to the immaculate transition of democracy. So the government’s control in the matters country as a whole is an important factor which might derail the democracy.
6. Conclusion:
Pakistan is still a young and developing country struggling to fit democracy into its roots for longer periods than past. Countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have a long history of civil wars and civil-military conflicts which led to an eventual understanding of the importance of democracy among people. But for Pakistan, there is still plenty to look forward as our homeland is just 70 years old. Future of democracy in Pakistan is bright as long as the civil-military relations stay on the course and neither of both starts a conflict with each other. There are some hurdles in the continual support and supremacy of democracy in Pakistan but these are being removed from the scene as Pakistan leans toward a harmonious future of democracy.