KARACHI:
Democracy is a system that was devised to provide people with power. The very definition of it “of the people, for the people, by the people” puts the common person at the centre of everything. The democratic norms in the civilised world also dictate that all parties accept the results of the polls. Unfortunately, in the Land of the Pure, the concept of democracy is quite convoluted.
First, results are always only acceptable to the winners. Those who lose, instead of surrendering to the will of the people, always cry foul. For some reason, our politicians believe that democracy only sustains if they win and any outcome besides that would involve foul play. Every party left, right, or centre, showers praise on democracy if they win and call it the worst rigging if they are unsuccessful. This happens every time polls are held in Pakistan at any level. Second, the very purpose of a democratic system is to devolve power to the grassroots level. Unfortunately, that is the last thing on our politicians’ minds. They only believe in the “by the people” part and not the rest. The moment they grab power through the vote, people are the last thing on their minds. When they are not in power, they seem to care and worry about people but suffer memory loss the moment they get their hands on power.
This is evident through the PTI and PDM’s behaviours over the last four years. When PTI was in power, PDM was all for people worried about inflation and a faltering economy. At the time, PTI completely rejected the claims and blamed the PDM parties for the state of the economy. Now for the last 8 months, PTI can feel the pain of people and PDM is claiming that the economy is in ruins because of PTI. Truth is that unless our politicians embrace democracy in true spirit and agree on core economic policies, we will keep going in circles.
Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2023.
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