Human lives have two aspects: the internal expressed through morals and religion and the external guided and shaped by the influence of devices, techniques, mechanisms, instrumentalities, digitization and the advent of artificial intelligence.
The modern man has built airplanes and spaceships that has squeezed distances and arrested the flight of the time. He can also deservedly boast of raising sky-scrapers, architectural marvels and behemoth bridges. He has produced thinking machines and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has within his grasp infinite vistas of scientific and technological advancement. The hall mark of this external and modern life, with predominantly materialistic outlook, is that it has suppressed the internal facet of human life, which is the root cause of all the problems faced by the mankind. This spiritual poverty has landed the world into intractable problems like injustice, poverty and conflict.
The global economic order erected on purely materialistic considerations is exploitative in nature and heavily tilted towards the more developed and technologically advanced nations. Similarly the predominance of the same materialistic philosophy within societies and states has created unbridgeable gulf between haves and have-nots, more so in the third world countries like Pakistan where political and economic power is in the hands of the landed aristocracy and the elite classes.
The single constituency system prevalent in the country has perpetuated the archaic colonial system of governance and strengthened the hold of the landlords and elite classes.
The system of governance, a legacy of the colonial era, has inbuilt avenues of corruption to serve the vested interests of elitist political class. They have created islands of affluence. They refuse to acknowledge and accept the adage that islands of affluence cannot exist in the oceans of poverty. They remain stubbornly oblivious to the fact that tensions generated by injustice and exploitation always lead to conflict and emergence of fissiparous tendencies in the society.
A conflict-ridden society fails to promote national integration besides undermining socio-economic development. The solution lies in bridging and narrowing the gap between haves and have-nots. John F Kennedy echoed a similar warning in these words “If a free and democratic society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich” The founding father of the Nation in his address to the constituent assembly on 11 June 1947 had also mentioned alleviation of poverty as top most priority of the state.
Pakistan needs to address ‘spiritual poverty’ without any further loss of time and choreograph a system of governance which is truly representative in nature and is capable of delivering justice. People are yearning for change which can only come through breaking the hold of landlords and elite on political power.
Elections are about to happen. The political parties have gone through a process of wheeling and dealing and also formed alliances to win public franchise. Almost all the parties have issued tickets to their nominees to contest National and provincial elections. A close look at the list of their candidates reveals that all the big parties have granted major chunk of their tickets to landlords and businessmen. Whether a single party forms the government at the centre and provinces or the results dictate formation of coalition governments, things are not going to change for better, at least for the poor segments of the society.
Under the present system, no matter how many elections are held, the results will not be different as it would bring back the same people to the assemblies; people with dubious credentials having myriad of skeletons in their cupboards. According to Einstein doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is insanity. This insanity must end now.
There is no doubt that people of Pakistan want continuation and strengthening of democracy in the country but they want a system of participatory democracy which ensures fair distribution of the national wealth, guarantees social justice to all the segments of the society and also ensures sharing of political power by the middle and poor classes. There is almost a national consensus on the electoral reforms. At the time of elections the parties make lofty and unrealistic pledges to the voters including reforming the system of governance and bringing electoral reforms but none has ever made a sincere effort to change the exploitative system because it serves their vested interests. Cosmetic changes here and there are not the solution.
The real issue is the way we elect our legislators. The single constituency system prevalent in the country is the real culprit which has perpetuated the archaic colonial system of governance and strengthened the hold of the landlords and elite classes on the political power. To get out of their suffocating stranglehold, the best recipe available is to switch over to the proportional representation system. Under this system the people vote for the parties and not individual candidates.
The parties get representation in the assemblies on the basis of the percentage of votes obtained by them indicating their real standing among the masses. The system eliminates horse-trading and change of loyalties through coercion and bribery. It enables the party leadership to nominate really competent and deserving people to the assemblies eliminating culture of black-mail by vested interests. It also ensures representation of smaller regional parties in the national politics discouraging centrifugal tendencies. It is the best available recipe for national integration and unity. Its success decidedly depends on making the voting compulsory for every registered voter.
In addition to the switch-over to proportional representation there is also a dire and immediate need for land reforms, bringing each and every sector of the economy under the umbrella of the tax regime, introduction of universal health insurance, upgrading and expanding the social security net. Immediate installation of the local government in line with the spirit of article 140A of the constitution which says “Each province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments” is also absolutely essential to address the disconnect between rulers and the ruled.
It is time for all the political parties to give a serious thought to reforming the system rising above their narrow political agendas and use their collective wisdom to compensate for their past follies if they desire to remain relevant to the future political landscape of the country.
The writer is a former diplomat and freelance columnist.