The constitutional precept of ‘separation of powers’ has been reduced to being only on paper.
LAHORE: A democratic process resulted in a democratic government taking over reins of this unfortunate country from a dictator. In the aftermath, however, I wonder to this day as to who was at the receiving end of this ‘revenge’.
Based on the events and circumstances that followed, it is only the common man, the masses, who have suffered and still suffer the wrath of this so-called ‘revenge’, i.e., democracy. I am not necessarily writing in favour of dictatorship, but only to ponder over what constitutes a democracy. In my opinion, the most important feature has to be the exercise of the will of the people. The will of the people is ensured by the process of elections. Representatives of the people are elected to legislative assemblies to represent the public and make laws that will govern the people. One question that immediately comes to my mind is that is it the people’s will that ministers are allowed to spend our hard-earned tax money without any check or balance? The fact of the matter is that our minister representatives do not cater to our will as much as they cater to the will of their leaders, which in effect, results in the exercise of the will of one instead of the will of the majority.
An interesting fact is that in a multiparty system like ours, a party that eventually gets to form the government does not necessarily bag a majority of votes but only the maximum number of seats in the assembly. For instance, in a National Assembly constituency, if the winning candidate got 80,000 votes, the runner-up 50,000 and the one who came third gets 40,000 votes, then it is obvious that a majority did not vote in favour of the winning candidate, yet he will be the one representing the people of that area.
Coming to the sanctity of the Constitution, the blatant violation (without consequence) of Article 140-A of the Constitution — mandatory establishment of local governments — throughout the tenure of the previous government and to date by three provinces is a reflection of the sanctity (or lack thereof) of our Constitution. Article 25-A makes it mandatory for the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of five and 16, yet there are millions deprived of this constitutional right.
The constitutional precept of ‘separation of powers’ has been reduced to being only on paper. In practice, all three pillars are continuously trying to establish their supremacy. If a democracy is, in effect, the rule of several dictators, then I would rather have just one. I may be inclined to believe that a bad democracy is better than a good dictatorship, but that can only be true if the ‘bad democracy’ is moving towards becoming a better, and eventually, true democracy. The question is, are we headed in the right direction?
Zafar Zulqurnain Sahi
Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2014.
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