Democracy, as a system, empowers people to choose at will. It is a system that gives people the right to accept and reject leaders, policies and programmes. General elections are the vehicle through which these choices are exercised. This is the basic difference from countries that are controlled by either dictators or monarchies that take away this power from the people and wrest it in their own hands. Research shows that sustainable development is only possible under systems that engage, involve and serve those who elect them. There are many examples of democratic countries versus not so democratic countries developing at a different pace. While India is the largest democracy in the world, China has done far better for its people than India. Thus, there is more to the story than just professing a certain type of political system.
Pakistan is a case study of many political theories. With most of its neighbouring countries ahead of it in terms of development, one of the main reasons given for this development failure is that for half of its history it has been governed by dictators. Interestingly, development in times of autocratic leaders has been much higher than in times of democratic leaders. The average growth rate in Musharraf’s nine years was 6-7 percent while in the last seven years of democratic government it has been three to four percent. Some of the reasons given are that democracy was not given its full reign, dictators did not do long term planning and the masses are not educated enough to make educated choices while choosing their leaders. While all these arguments have some validity, Pakistan is a troubling case of non-development in a system that has proved a big vehicle of development in the world, and thus needs further examination.
Democracy in common terms is described as “with the people, by the people and for the people”. A lot of what has not worked in Pakistan and in some other countries despite claimed democracy can be explained by going by this rather simplistic definition. A democratic system has to ensure that the public is involved in political decision making at all levels. Thus, three forms of government are mandatory to fulfil this requirement: federal, provincial and local. The third tier is the most important to devolve power at the grassroots level. However, most democratic governments in Pakistan have been shy of holding local body elections while dictators have been more forthcoming in this regard. Again, the reason quoted is that dictators use it to gain grassroots control, missing due to their political illegitimacy. In a true democracy, federal and provincial governments are policy and law makers and should not have development funds while local governments should be the ones using these funds for developing their local constituencies. As politics in Pakistan has been more of a money and power game, MNAs and MPAs are extremely reluctant to let go of billions of rupees.
This leads to the question why are they reluctant to let go of this money. One of the main reasons is that politics is easy business and, secondly, they are not directly dependent on the public to get them into political office. That is why the definition of democracy being for the people does not hold true in this country. The consistent deterioration in every single economic and social indicator in the country is evidence of how “for the people” has really been thrown in the dustbin. Secondly, “by the people” is not exactly the absolute truth as far as the election system is concerned. That is why this debate on elections being fair and free, and as per the constitutional description of representing the mandate of the people has become so dominant and vocal.
The first fair and free general elections were held in Pakistan in 1970 by General Yahya Khan. Out of 24 parties, the Awami League of East Pakistan and the PPP in West Pakistan scored the maximum seats. These elections were supposedly the cleanest elections as General Yahya never expected any party to score enough seats to form a strong government and thus did not bother to rig. After this, general elections were held by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 in which the PPP faced an alliance of nine parties called the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). The results were again unexpected as the PPP who, by that time was down in popularity, gained maximum seats of 155 while the PNA got only 36. Protests and riots took place in the country and General Ziaul Haq took over, arresting and later hanging Bhutto on murder charges. Martial law was imposed until 1985 and then, finally, Ziaul Haq was killed in a plane crash in 1988. Thereafter, the two-year revolving door democracy started with Benazir Bhutto managing a controversial win in the 1988 elections only to be dismissed on corruption charges in 1990. The pattern continued of the PPP and PML-N coming into power every two years with heavy allegations of rigging until 1999 when martial law returned with Musharraf in charge. The 2002 elections were termed a military exercise for democratic acceptability and 2008 as an election conducted on a voter list that was 45 percent bogus. The 2013 elections, after a full term of democracy, were supposed to be more representative and fair but, to date, remain controversial.
Why has it always been this cycle of new government, same corruption, same rigging and then the cycle starts all over again? Primarily because every time a new government comes there are some select cases of corruption of the previous government but none whatsoever on electoral rigging. The election commission is accepted as incompetent, voter lists are never cleaned up enough to give a chance to every single person to cast their own vote and pre-poll, during polls and post-poll rigging is screamed against but never penalised. Therein lies the problem of why elections have become a farce and why politicians have become a joke. Trust in the institutions and people running those institutions are at an all time low and accountability of performance is non-existent. For democracy to be effective, institutions like the election commission and various tribunals have to be made accountable for their performance and penalised for irregularities. To absolve wrongdoers by classifying an irregularity as not really corruption and, thus, not really punishable is wrong. Incompetence and dishonesty both tarnish the quality of work and are equally reprehensible and punishable. As Norman D Palmer, who has undertaken extensive research on South Asian politics, concluded: “The never ending political crisis in Pakistan is the product of electoral corruption.” Without dealing with this entrenched virus, democracy will be just a political slogan.
The writer is secretary information PTI Punjab, an analyst, and columnist, and can be reached at [email protected]