Daily Times

The passage of the highly contentious Election Act 2017 by the parliament, removing the bar on a disqualified person from becoming the head of a political party, marks a new low in the chequered history of democracy in the country. Effectively, it is meant for the disgraced former prime minister to assume charge of PML-N as its president.

Taking their turns, the parliamentary leaders of all political parties in the opposition reacted negatively to the person-specific amendment. “Heavens will not fall if Nawaz Sharif does not become party president. He is effectively in charge of the affairs and has appointed the prime minister and ministers of his choice,” one of them said on the floor of the House. Others warned that, if passed, the law will be challenged in the courts.

The bill has since become law with the president having dutifully signed on the dotted line. In a party huddle, the disqualified former prime minister was elected as the president and he has since assumed the charge. The sitting prime minister and bootleggers galore have vociferously congratulated him.

Earlier, members of the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the ruling party had reposed their faith in the leadership of Nawaz Sharif by voting in favour of removing the clause from its constitution forbidding disqualified members from contesting election for the party offices.

In bulldozing the bill through the assembly, the leaders of the ruling party failed to realize that democracy is not all about brute numbers. It is more about the finer points and nuances which have been nurtured over decades by the advocates of this form of government. And one such enshrining principle is rooted in the right of the minority voice. This was eloquently put across by Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the US Declaration of Independence:”All, too, will bear in mind the sacred principle that, though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable, that the minority possess their equal rights which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

That right of the minority voice, and for the amendment to be rightful, was brutally massacred in this power play of numbers. The mindset working behind the scene through the battalions of lackeys and sycophants arrayed across the lush seats in the Parliament House is rooted in the despotic teachings of demon dictator Ziaul Haq whose mission the disgraced former prime minister had, at one stage, so forcefully vowed to carry forth.

But, more importantly, by upholding the right of a disqualified person to be their leader, the members of the National Assembly have forfeited their moral right to sit in the parliament. They are elected to the august House not to uphold the fraudulent cause of a person who has been rendered ineligible by the apex court, and who has innumerable corruption cases pending against him, but to rally behind the state institutions, including the judiciary, to help forth the tenets of justice and cleanse the system of impediments.

Let’s look at the two sides of the existent divide. On the one side is the apex judiciary which disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office and ordered institution of corruption cases against him. On the other side is the ruling party of the country which has moved with speed to sabotage the spirit and letter of the judgment by abrogating the bar imposed on a disqualified person. Are we staring into a long, dark tunnel as our future?

What is this thing about an insatiable lust for continuing to stick to the seat of power, no matter what it is and how it comes about? And that one must pursue it with all means, fair and foul? This is like a disease that nibbles at your being incessantly and a person with faith in the norms of democracy would likely not be suffering from it.

But, we see otherwise. Continuing greed for power appears to be a consuming passion with leaders across affiliations and divides. It reflects a lack of trust in the democratic polity and all that it entails. It also overstates an individual’s right over that of the burgeoning system which is still in need of tender care and nurturing.

Aldous Huxley had cautioned against this greed, “All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time.”

Nawaz Sharif is following the path of provoking confrontation with institutions, most notably the judiciary and the military. I remember being part of a meeting not too long ago where he repeatedly reiterated his vow to cut the military down to size. The judiciary has since been elevated to the same stature which, understandably, needs a trimming down. No wonder, we hear loud murmurs of drastic changes that are envisaged in the accountability laws and how the military is to be managed.

This confrontation needs to be averted. The ruling elite should take a step back and get a full measure of the dangers that a continuing onslaught unleashed by this patently undemocratic mindset would pose to the cause of democracy in the country. They must understand that democracy is not centred round individuals, but some inalienable rules and principles and the institutions which ensure their implementation. Judiciary is the key to that implementation. Its weakness reflects the weakness of democracy.

Pakistan has hit a new low in its erratic march to democracy. If we still believe in following the course, we will have to accept the dispensability of individuals and the indispensability of the enshrining principles on which democracy is founded.

It is democracy we need to strengthen. Not individuals of dubious repute and calibre.

Published in Daily Times, October 4^th 2017.