Pakistan’s moment of reckoning in its exclusive search for sustainable democracy
The seven decades of Pakistan’s life as a country has been defined by a perennial struggle to establish itself as a sustainable democracy. Despite writing for itself a constitutional guarantee of a pluralist, inclusive parliamentary democracy rooted in the country’s fragile federation, it has often found itself battling for the supremacy of the most basic of the constitutional promises. The July 25 general election represents Pakistan’s latest moment of reckoning in a historic pursuit of the rather elusive sustainability of democracy.
What is already a record third election in a row with preceding completed five-year tenures, Pakistan is wading into its 10th election awash in rather ominous overtones and dark musings. These are already the most polarized and contentious elections since the first one in 1970, which ended up breaking the country in two when its eastern wing seceded to become Bangladesh.
Rather than promising a periodic renewal of faith in the system, the circumstances in which the 107 million registered voters are searching for guarantees now are instead throwing up only uncertainties.
Consider this: Discernibly increasing judicial activism has resulted in the Supreme Court and high courts becoming active arbiters in political disputes among contending parties and their leaders. This is the standard domain of the voters and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which has a mandate to determine the eligibility of candidates and parliamentarians.
Resultantly, what are essentially political disputes that can be resolved politically through electoral accountability, have instead ended up using legal means to disqualify a raft of politicians, mostly from the erstwhile ruling party: The Pakistan Muslim League — Nawaz (PML-N) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Some, like Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz, have been jailed not for corruption during their time in office, but for not being able to prove the acquisition of family assets dating back four decades.
Others have been disqualified from the election for not complying with the undefined standards of moral traits controversially written into the constitution during the 1980s by military dictator Ziaul Haq. In effect, some of the most recognizable politicians of the past three decades have been ousted from the electoral race, instead of allowing voters to choose or reject their leaders.
Incredibly enough, the ECP — despite being in charge of the entire electoral exercise — has not made itself a party to any of the private court cases from politicians seeking legal means to knock out their political foes, instead of passing through its gates for procedural compliance. The ECP’s silent spectatorship throws into question its independence, and by extension the fairness and impartially of the election.
The poll has also been marred by unprecedented censorship and manipulation of the media. The country’s premier human rights watchdog, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, on the eve of the election issued a damning report detailing widespread curbs on broadcast and print media as well as the internet.
The report details case studies that often delve into harrowing instances of manipulation, threats and harm visited on journalists and media houses in the several weeks preceding the election. Without free media and safe journalists, democracy cannot be rooted in its own standards, so elections will remain flawed.
Another deep shadow looming over the credibility of the election are the startling claims by an Islamabad High Court judge, Shaukat Siddiqui, about interference in political and judicial processes by Pakistan’s premier intelligence agencies with a view to manipulating the result.
The claims, often the topic of private discussions and social media satire, are hard to shake off at the time of the election, since they come from a senior serving judge next in line to be the chief justice of the High Court. The claims are sure to haunt the election results.
But if the purpose of the election is to throw up a renewed mandate to rebuild Pakistan around its democratic aspirations, perhaps nothing best illustrates the poll’s significance than what it means for eventual winners and losers.
The winner will have to heal the deep wounds they have opened around how national politics is to be conducted in the service of national development. It seems a tall order considering the cavernous polarization that has been effected into an already fractious polity through often-vitriolic election campaigning.
The key frontrunners — a three-way contest between the PML-N, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and Bilawal Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — all demonstrated an aversion to issue-based politics, and spent the bulk of their campaigning criticizing others, often bordering on the sleazy and personal, rather than showcasing their performance.
They are unable to recognize the wisdom of the voters, who in the last election in 2013 — for the first time ever — gave mandates in the provinces to different parties as a means of allowing all the key ones to implement their manifestos. This runs afoul of the key contenders’ claims to represent the entire country while at the same time denigrating even the flashes of good provincial governance.
The election is essentially about uniting Pakistan to consolidate the gains from federal and provincial governance over the past five years. This unity will not be birthed through polarization and rejection of a pluralist mandate, as it was after the 2013 election.
If Pakistani political parties — and the security establishment and judiciary, which often view politicians with disdain — do not accept the people’s mandate for a pluralist polity, sustainability will continue to elude democracy in the country. For democracy to sustain itself, a sustainable democratic culture will have to be engendered. For Pakistan to prosper, the people’s wisdom, not the politics of authoritarianism and exclusion, will have to prevail.
– Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science. Twitter: @adnanrehmat1
