Daily Times

In the backdrop of what has been happening in this country on the political front since the 2008 general elections, one is not surprised at the excessive focus on corruption and bad governance in the current electoral debate.

All the three mainstream political parties — the PMLN, the PTI and the PPP — have enough real and imaginary skeletons in their respective cupboards to play to the gallery by hitting each other below the belt.

None of these parties appear to be in the mood to talk about anything other than the symptoms of a chronic disease, the causes of which lie somewhere else.

Both democracy and market economy are perhaps the most ideal systems in their respective genres. However, when you practice democracy without checks and balances and free-market economy without regulations, you simply cannot keep corruption and bad governance out. In fact, in such a situation the two become an integral part of the system.

Indeed, democracy tempered with checks and balance guarantees political equality to each and every citizen of the country, as no matter on which side of economic divide one is located, he or she gets one vote, equal in political value.

Similarly, market economy tempered with regulations guarantees that the dividing gap between the haves and have-nots, remains within a reasonable bandwidth.

None of the mainstream parties appear to be in the mood to talk about anything other than the symptoms of a chronic disease, the causes of which lie somewhere else

However, when you have democracy without checks and balance and market economy sans regulations, it does not take a long time for economic inequality to set in and then increase by leaps and bounds, concentrating most of the national wealth in the hands of a shrinking few, surrounded by an expanding sea of poverty.

And in the process, political parties that seek votes from the common man on the promise to serve them to the best of their abilities are captured, nay, bought off by these handful of wealthy individuals and forced to play their willing proxies in Parliament making laws that protect, promote and preserve the interests of these few. In essence, this means perpetuation of corruption and continuation of bad governance.

That is what is happening in Pakistan, and also in most of those developing countries where democracy is being practiced without checks and balance and market economy sans proper regulations. You simply cannot curb corruption and improve governance without first introducing checks and balance in the democratic process and at the same time, making the free-market economy adhere to regulations.

But our current ruling elite; comprising big business, feudal aristocracy, captive political parties and the institutions created by the Constitution but functioning out of their respective legal domains, all of whom are the biggest beneficiaries of the existing state of affairs do not seem to be interested in breaking the status quo.

In the first place it is illogical to expect them to give up — perhaps out of altruistic sentiments which they nevertheless lack —their respective unearned political and monetary privileges. Secondly, even if the miracle were to happen, these elite would hardly know how to go about ushering in the needed reforms for which they hardly seem to have the required capacity.

But then if something does not happen fast enough to bring about a positive change in the prevailing situation, there is no guarantee that the country would not suffer irretrievable and lasting damage to its nationhood.

The forthcoming elections might offers an opportunity to avert this looming disaster.

In the days gone by, back when the left and right wing ideologies were locked in a long drawn cold war, the have-nots used to take the path of revolution to break their shackles. But the history of such revolutions tells us that such a course leads to further chaos.

So what do we do to liberate the nation out of the trap it has landed into, and guide it back on a course leading to what is now called inclusive growth that curbs corruption and also improves governance in the process?

Following the end of World War II, social democratic parties across Europe, realising that though they couldn’t dispense with capitalism completely, started to mould it to a significant degree. The ‘slow and steady’ approach of Britain’s Fabien Society helped cement this idea. Italian and French Socialists also played a role. In Germany, prominent thinkers sought to harness the productive powers of capitalism to counter its destructive propensity to create inequality.

As a result, with the emergence of the free market on one hand and relative social security and transfers on the other, a balance was created that ensured inclusive growth, establishing both political and economic equality all at the same time.

The concept of inclusive growth rejects the trickle down economy idea, which in fact had given rise to expanding inequality.

Inclusive growth does not curb growth but encourages it while ensuring that the entire society is guaranteed an affordable three square meals a day, affordable education, affordable health cover, affordable transport, affordable housing and affordable communications.

As observed earlier, our present ruling elite does not have the willingness and the capacity to change or break out of the prevailing status quo.

Therefore, we need a new political force to do the job — the job of mobilising the entire nation, sweeping out of the electoral arena all the so-called electables and at the same time, refusing to be dictated by big businesses or institutions, no matter which one or in what combination and decline as well to serve their agenda based on their vested interests, which has been invariably causing great harm to our nationhood.

One hopes that in the ensuring electoral debate, the call from this new force would silence the wasteful harangues of our mainstream political parties.

This new call needs to bring a vociferous critique of capitalism back to the debate, unregulated free-markets and democracy without checks and balance in as simple a language as possible so that the message goes out to the widest possible audience and is understood by most voters. The call, in order to be effective, should be able to separate right from wrong. Here, right is left and wrong is right, in ideological terms that is.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, April 12^th 2018.