Daily Times

Arrangement of the situation room was following the President of US, George Bush, the newly elected US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice along with the bunch of constitutional lawyers around the table engaged in an intense discussion about the calamity of Katrina in 2005 which caused the great deal of damage to the United States but its aftermath was catastrophic to the unprecedented degree in American history of natural disaster.

Under the extraordinary circumstances, the distraught President exasperatingly kept insisting to summon American military into the streets of Florida and Texas to aid the American people in keeping law and order situation arguing that military surely would have been capable to perform to deal with the plight of Post-Katrina wreckage.

President was as revoked by the Constitutional experts sitting around him with the phrase ‘posse comitatus’, as he asked to give charge to the military in aid to the victims who pleads for help, overheard phrase took the frustrated president tend to freak out asking the constitutional lawyers sitting the other side of the table, “What in the world is ‘Posse Comitatus?’

Political will seems to be an undeniable challenge. The impure politicians in the land of the pure have no desire to make societal and structural changes

Constitutional Lawyers responded with concern, Mr President, Military surely would have been vitally capable aiding people in the aftermath of Katrina disaster but the 1878 Act of ‘Posse Comitatus’ prevents you to exercise Presidential discretion to send federal troops to intercede the local law enforcement by challenging American long-valued institutional considerations. However ‘Rules of the games’ are, therefore essentially important in every advanced democracy which detonates the idea about how the state, society as well as other political segments of a society, ought to behave.

Posse Comitatus was the act to limit the federal government in exercising federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. The act was a result of centuries-long understanding which derived through the American traumatic past experiences of deploying militaries into domestic periphery of power.

George Washington the founding father of America and military leader himself stipulated the fact that the standing armies could be ‘dangerous to a state.’ By the time, it gets the realisation in America about the constitutional role of military which meant only to defend the borders of a republic, but otherwise can be antithesis to democratic governance and values.

This is the very paradox predominantly ubiquitous in Pakistan since the country came into being. What has been apparent in the past seven tumultuous decades; however is that the required equilibrium which protects the balance between democratic institutions, particularly between civilian and military leadership is yet to achieve in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s second rated political elite who beyond the shadow of a doubt immensely lack political prescience invites fairly often the regular military to enforce domestic laws disrupts the democratic equilibrium every once in a while.

What happens when the troops are summoned in aid to civilian supremacy from micro to macro level? Legitimacy of democratic institutions is being challenged and crumbled the faith of a citizen in democratic culture.

At the point, in addition to protecting the borders of the country, when troops are unduly summoned to march through the civilian quarters ranging from ethnic and sectarian violence, to keep the political order, establishing military courts, organizing elections, conducting census, aiding in natural disasters, protecting polio immunisation campaigns, including the execution of civil laws in domestic arena bars the legitimacy of democratic institutions in the eyes of citizens. The civil-military enigma also comes to actually increase the trust deficit between the democratic system and society as a result any alternative to the democracy admires the rue and betrayed masses.

The question hangs in the air; what hinders Pakistan to achieve the democratic equilibrium?

Political will seems to be an undeniable challenge. The impure politicians on the land of pure neither desire to transform the existing status quo to make societal, structural and historical adjustments nor has capacity to live up the standards to guarantee the rules of the game but to run the state of affairs on adhoc basis.

The politicians renders the role of armed forces in aid of civil power as a first and final expedient considering the only cure to the body politic of Pakistan levels the ground for military takeovers.

Let the history be our guide, in Pakistan every coup d’état occurred when the forces of democracy repudiated to uphold the spirit of democracy, subverted the constitutional norms and their inability to adopt the rules of the games instead prioritized the vested interests and putting self above community and country.

Vince Molinaro, the author of the book titled ‘The Leadership Gap’ heard quoted, “great leadership is rooted in a deep sense of personal accountability”. To this account, Problem lies in personal accountability as Pakistan’s incompetent and unfit political elite fear the personal accountability therefore chooses handpicked approach to democracy in which they intend to make people obey the rules but themselves disguise in layers of immunity which takes them to hamper the rules of the games to prevail.

Time has come to keep pace with global realities and to accept the responsibility for nurturing democratic institutions and define the terms of politics. The democratic transition executed through democratic norms and values as a guiding political philosophy and vehicle for a progressive change in the country.

Instead of making Shallow rhetoric, the spirit of Posse Comitatus is fundamentally important to adopt in Pakistani political culture to sustain the rules of the game and to engender the trust of the citizen into the democratic system, a system which ensures the promising commitment to the democratic freedom.

The writer is a freelance writer tweets at @ranasarfraz3417

Published in Daily Times, April 11^th 2018.