Daily Times

Facing a crucial legitimacy crisis, many Western European political parties have recently undergone various forms of organizational changes by adopting procedures for increasing intra-democracy, internal ballots, internal referenda, primary elections and so on. Direct democracy is now used in a wide range of decision-making procedures such as candidate and leadership selection. These reforms have provided new opportunities for participation in party members. What happens to more traditional elements of party internal structures when such instruments of intra-party democracy are adopted? And more specifically, how are such changes perceived by the party base? This explores the attitudes and behaviors of members with regard to intra-party democracy procedures.

The intra-party election is a fundamental indicator to explore the authenticity of democratization and decentralization of political parties. The study would be evaluating how many political parties followed the democratic norms in the internal party elections. The most recent literature analyzing parties from an organizational perspective focuses often on the concepts of intra-party democracy and party organizational democratization. The fingers are being pointed out on the effectiveness and procedure of intra-party election in Pakistani political parties. This analysis seeks to explore the grey areas in the overall mechanism of intra-party election and to explore the challenges, that why political parties avoided intra-party elections and to bring it within the norms of democracy, and suggest improvements to make it complementary to intra-party democratic norms.

Over the years intra-party elections in the mainstream political parties of Pakistan have proved merely a mock exercise with most of the parties under the control of either their founders or their legal heirs.

However, in order to justify ‘democratic traditions’ the second tier offices having only symbolic significance are held by the central leadership.

A detailed analysis of internal democracy in political parties of the country reveals that only Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a party known for taking hard line against liberalism is so far the only political force where Shoora (Central Executive) stands stronger than the Ameer (party head) and never, any son or daughter of the Ameer has succeeded him.

The mainstream parties including the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) don’t have such a strong democratic culture and history proves this fact.

The mainstream parties including the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) don’t have such a strong democratic culture and history proves this fact

Lack of democracy within political parties is an issue that Pakistan has been struggling with for the better part of its history. Parties with a national vote bank like the PML-N and PPP never really embraced this notion despite having agreed upon certain procedural requirements within the election rules. While the Election Commission of Pakistan inserted this requirement for elections within parties, the latter treated this as a formality to be completed in the letter but not in spirit. Imran Khan’s PTI made a big deal of these sham elections and instituted a system for its internal elections to show it was truly a democratic party and not a family-run enterprise.

The one-time electoral exercise led to such a bitter feud within the party that soon everything reverted back to the leader nominating people for various party offices. The PTI’s romance with democracy within its party was short-lived.

It was, therefore, not surprising to hear a PTI lawmaker admitting this fact at a seminar in Islamabad recently. MNA from Peshawar conceded that democracy within parties, including his own, was a huge challenge. He is right. With the passage of time, the PTI has stopped even pretending that its affairs are managed on any democratic principles. By reverting to this traditional manner of running political parties in Pakistan, it has joined the ranks of the PML-N, the PPP, and most other parties. The adverse effects of this undemocratic culture inside these parties are greater than we realize. Such a culture stifles debate, scuttles healthy disagreements and suppresses dissent. It elevates the leader to a position where he is not answerable to the rank and file of his party. It also gives him or her veto power on decision-making and diminishes the role of others. More significantly, it promotes acceptance of absolute authority and dilutes the essence of democracy. When such a culture reigns within parties, it is difficult to expect them to change their value system within the larger democratic dispensation. It is the ECP’s responsibility to enforce the requirement for elections within parties and to ensure that these are not sham exercises in futility. So far the ECP has taken a lenient view of this deficiency. With a new leadership of the ECP due to be appointed, it is a good opportunity to take stock of the situation as it exists and to strengthen the rules so that we can strengthen democracy.

Political parties in established parliamentary democracies are confronting three strong trends that change their relationships to supporters: declining voter loyalty, declining party membership, and the declining importance of cleavage politics. This will highlight two organizational responses to such challenges, the expansion of intra-party democracy and the introduction of new forms of party membership. These changes are generally presented by parties as responses to supporters’ weakening ties. Yet party supporters are seldom a homogenous group, and party voters and party members do not necessarily share identical priorities. Thus, parties that expand internal democracy may unintentionally create new conflicts between the member ‘stakeholders’ and the political ‘consumers’ who are the party’s potential voters. Uses examples from Great Britain and Canada to illustrate some of the different ways that parties in these countries have been handling the potential conflicts created by shifts towards more open and more internally democratic party organizations.

The writer is MBBS; MAS (Master in Health Services Management) Retired from Health Department Govt. of Sindh / Writer