Daily Times

Pakistan’s religious parties and Islamic scholars have been overly obsessive about the idea of replicating at home political and constitutional models from the Middle East. Perhaps this is owed to the inherited legacy of old, close religious, cultural and spiritual affinities between the Muslims of South Asia and the people of the Middle East, including Iran and Turkey. Be it the Balkan Wars or the issue of Palestine, the Muslims of South Asia have always shown strong solidarity with and declared unequivocal support to their Arab brethren. But sometimes, they have acted over-zealously in pronouncing the inevitability of a change in Pakistan on the lines of what had happened in the Middle East. For example, in 1979, when Iran underwent a radical change spearheaded by the late Imam Khomeini against the Shah of Iran, some religious parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, thought the Iranian experiment could be repeated in Pakistan. Nevertheless, very soon these elements got disillusioned.

The wave of revolutionary protests and demonstrations popularly known as the Arab Spring that has swept the entire Arab world from Mauritania and Morocco in north-west Africa through the Arabian Peninsula to Oman and Bahrain in the Persian Gulf since late 2010 is being used as a new reference by some political adventurers in Pakistan. Prompted by the success of the Arab Spring to bring regime change in countries such as Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, and sustained uprisings in Syria and Bahrain, a group of Pakistan’s political leaders, religious as well as secular, are attempting to replace the present political order through similar rallies and demonstrations witnessed during the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East. The successful and undoubtedly one of the largest public rallies in recent times addressed by Dr Tahirul Qadri at the Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore on December 23, 2012, has provided a strong incentive for these attempts. The rally is being likened to the protesting crowds of Egyptians at Tahrir Square, who forced the former president Hosni Mubarak out of office and recently compelled President Mohammad Morsi to rescind his authoritarian November decree. There is now open talk of following the Egyptian model. Dr Qadri has served the federal government an ultimatum to reform the current political system through constitutional changes defined by him by the 10th of the current month, failing which he has threatened to launch a long march towards Islamabad, holding a four-million-strong rally in the capital. But Dr Qadri should know that Pakistan is not Egypt; therefore the Egyptian model cannot work in Pakistan.

The reasons lie, firstly, in the vast difference of historical experience through which the two countries have passed during the last about six decades. Egypt transitioned from monarchy to democracy in 2012 after the long and uninterrupted spell (60 years) of military-dominated authoritarian rule of Gemal Abdul Nasser followed by Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak; whereas Pakistan was born as a result of a constitutional and democratic struggle led by a civilian leadership.

Secondly, the political system of Pakistan (as well as that of India) is based on that wonder known as the 1935 Act, which had received input from the best Indian and British legal and political minds before being enacted by the British parliament as the constitutional framework for undivided India. The principles of federalism, parliamentary democracy and the independence of the judiciary within its framework enjoy the consensus support of almost all political forces in Pakistan. Even the religious parties support the basic concepts of the Act, such as the supremacy of the constitution and parliament, which are secular in nature. Pakistan’s two consensus constitutions, i.e. the 1956 and 1973 Constitutions, were based on the principles enshrined in the1935 Act. Although Pakistan’s political system has evolved into a much more democratic and participatory one as compared to the original 1935 Act, the basic structure of our political system, with federalism, political pluralism, supremacy of parliament and independence of the judiciary remains the same as introduced for the first time in India under the 1935 Act.

Thirdly, the attempts by Pakistan’s military rulers to replace this system with a presidential (Ayub Khan’s 1962 constitution) or quasi-presidential (Zia’s eighth and Musharraf’s 17th Amendment) one failed miserably and the people of Pakistan at the first opportunity available made their choice clear in favour of the parliamentary system. Viewed in a broader regional perspective, the parliamentary form of government has found greater acceptability in South Asia as the popular mass movements in Bangladesh and Nepal in the1990s led to the replacement of authoritarian (monarchy in the case of Nepal and Hossain Mohammad Ershad’s presidential system in Bangladesh) regimes by the parliamentary system of government.

Fourthly, the demographics of Egypt and those of Pakistan are fundamentally different. Unlike Egypt, Pakistan is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi linguistic society, where it is no longer possible for a single political party to establish its hegemony over the whole of the country as the Muslim Brotherhood has been able to do in Egypt through the recently held elections. Pakistan is part of a region that for the last two decades witnessed an era of coalitional politics reflecting cultural and ethnic diversity. Pakistan is a federation with strong regional parties. No party with an exclusive support base in a single federating unit would be able to dictate its terms to other units; if any entity tries to do so it will mean the disintegration of the country.

Finally, the dominant features of the political systems in the Middle East have been the oppressive and non-responsive state, absence of participatory democracy, dynastic rule, corruption and lack of accountability. In South Asia, there have been spells of authoritarian rule in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, but even under authoritarianism, the state has not been overly oppressive as has been the case in the Middle East. In Pakistan, people have restored democracy after waging a long and arduous struggle against a military dictator. They have elected federal and provincial governments, which are about to complete their terms. New elections are soon to be held and to ensure that these elections are free and fair, a mechanism has been agreed upon among the major political parties of Pakistan. In such a situation, there is no justification for repeating Tahrir Square in Islamabad or giving a call for revolution.

The writer is a professor of International Relations at Sargodha University. He can be reached at Rashid_khan192@yahoo.com