Democracy in Pakistan — conspiracy against or erosion?

The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court on Panama leaks that disqualified Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister has greatly stirred the country’s political environment and has set in motion various political forces with their standpoints. The post-disqualification politics of Sharif seems to centre on the rejection of the court’s verdict as the decision has violated the “sanctity of vote” and the judges have “conspired to derail democracy.” The facts however negate any such claims and do not correspond well with these allegations as the democratic system is very much intact. There was no overthrow of the government by any general, the PML-N’s government is fully functional, the Constitution, Parliament, and other related institutions are working as well. Moreover, the ex-PM has all the liberty to speak out his heart, even condemning the judiciary is not taken as a contempt of court by the Lahore High Court.

Democracy has not been derailed nor seemingly is there a threat to democracy at the moment but there are serious challenges for the ex-PM with reference to core essentials of democratic norms. Equating any personal challenges regarding transparency, accountability and good governance with a “threat to democracy” is indicative of personality-based politics and a weak internal democratic structure within political parties along with a disregard for the rule of law. This approach on behalf of elected leaders is not only dangerous for democracy, but it also creates a lot of confusion in national and international circles and makes experts on Pakistani politics raise concerns about the erosion in public support for democracy. This concern however, is not valid as the people of Pakistan have made huge sacrifices for the restoration of democracy at different points in time; against the dictatorial regimes of Gen Ayub Khan, Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf. Specifically during the most tyrannical rule of Gen Zia when a large number of Pakistanis (many in their prime youth) were behind bars, persecuted and executed.

This commentary advances on the proposition that there is no erosion of public support for democracy in Pakistan, but there is an erosion of democracy, as Samuel P. Huntington theorises, by the “political leaders and groups, who win elections, take power, and manipulate the mechanisms of democracy to curtail or destroy democracy.” Further to reinforce the argument, the current military doctrine of nonintervention in politics since 2008 has rather revolved around support for the democratic system, ensured that the governments complete their full terms and helped in conduct of free and fair elections. For example, many heard the sound of boots behind the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s 2014 dharna, but ultimately they diminished and the elected government came out on top much stronger.

The current political environment portrays Pakistan as an example of Huntington’s third wave democracy, where the threats to democracy are “likely to come not from generals and revolutionaries…but rather from participants in the democratic process,” thus the threat is not of an ousting but of a gradual erosion of democracy and democratic principles.

Erosion of democracy in Pakistan can be explained basically by the lack of strengthening and promoting democracy in the post-democratisation period. The first-ever smooth power transition in 2013 from the PPP to the PML-N “was a game changer which greatly reduced the chances of an abrupt government change in Pakistan,” according to South Asia expert Marvin Weinbaum. The smooth power transition is an essential constituent in the process of democratisation. However, beyond democratisation, consolidation and strengthening of democracy remains the most essential task to avoid a reversal, or a step back, especially in countries like Pakistan whose checkered political history has seen several abrupt government changes in the past.

Unfortunately the post-2008 era, according to the Jinnah Institute, was “marked by poor governance, persistent adversarial relations between the executive and the judiciary, allegations of corruption and the inability of the political leadership to build consensus to combat terrorism.” Similarly, gradual deterioration of the quality of democracy was also reported by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency (Pildat) in its report, The Assessment of the Quality of Democracy in Pakistan, June 2013-December 2014. The report studied 18 months of the PML-N government and concluded that it was “weak performance of the elected Government that dented the credibility of democracy as a system that ensures good governance.” Further, the latest report from Pildat does not depict optimistic picture for democracy either. The quality of democracy in Pakistan in the year of 2016 scored by Pildat is 46% which is 4 per cent below the score it received in 2015.

The current political turmoil in Pakistan once again has generated speculations and a big question mark on the quality of democracy and the effectiveness of the democratic institutions in Pakistan. It was after the miserable failure of all the democratic institutions that the Supreme Court had intervened in the Panama Leaks case. In the overall institutional failure the very first failure came from the parliamentary party PML-N itself. Due to the personality factor of Nawaz Sharif and the lack of intra-party democracy, there was no accountability from within. Equally disappointing was the role of other institutions such as the supreme democratic institution — Parliament — that could not hold its own leader accountable; the inability of the political parties to agree on ToRs; and the performance of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Instead of working towards celebrating democratic consolidation and effective functioning of key democratic institutions, unfortunately, on its 70^th independence anniversary Pakistan is still in the process of defining the roles of institutions as the Senate is in the process of holding intra-institutional dialogue to prevent the collision of state institutions. Yet, on the other hand, the controversial reference against the Supreme Court by the National Assembly speaker, and the defiance of NAB by the Sharif family tell a different story and indicate clearly that there could be a collision of state institutions which may lead to further erosion of the path to sound democracy.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2017.

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