Is people’s power an illusion?

Global politics is an aggregate of regional politics; regions are constituted of states; and states of individuals. Therefore, although it may seem far flung, it is actually individuals that move things at the global scale – but only those who have the flex to do so.

This explains why internal politics of a state is so critical for global players, and why global and regional forces have so much at stake in matters that are seemingly very local. It is of prime interest then, to try to relate local politics and the human agency behind it with dynamics of the global level.

It is common notion that the political process in Pakistan is dominated by the ‘establishment’, an unmarked group of elites from among the top brass in the Armed Forces, the Central Superior Services, higher Judiciary and certain political elites and top-notch professionals that are socially well-knit, very secretive, and who from within their quiet realm exercise power over the country’s institutions, economy and politics. Political leaders are expected to face the heat of furious public opinion, yet they may lack the power mandated to them by public vote, while the invisible ‘establishment’ residing in their comfort zones may be pulling the real strings of power!

The power of the ‘establishment’ resides in the institutions and elites of the country. Therefore, their first loyalty is with the country, wherefrom their power is yielded. But the rule of ‘power’ is that it does not allow any other entity to become its equivalent, else it would eat it up. So, ‘establishment’ being a concentrate of power from all sorts of institutions cannot allow the single institution of democratic politics overpower it. The problem that genuine political leadership presents to it is that it has the potential to gobble up the deep state and establish a new set of deep state of its own choosing.

So, the dynamics at the local level is based on the principle of maintaining a status quo of a prevailing deep state. But ‘status quo’ is exactly the thing that is most difficult to maintain in a dynamic world composed of aspirations of millions of agents of change and progress. So it happens that to maintain an internal stasis, strings are tied with external power points and a network of a global nature is formed. And these external power points now have the ability to interfere in the local dynamics and play between the deep state and the political leadership in such ways that would secure ‘their interests’ – and what the common people see now is only façade upon façade upon façade.

The loyalty of the ‘establishment’ to the country is undoubted, but to curtail power based on popular vote, and maintain its own power equations over it, many times compromises have to be made, even at national policy level. But these compromises may be vital in the eyes of the ‘establishment’ because of the true reason that most of the time the leadership that comes with popular vote is incompetent, self-serving and tied to the same external power point that may now use them against the very deep state that deems itself the saviour of the state.

But very occasionally, there may be a popular leadership like ex-PM Imran Khan, who has no strings attached to external powers; who has an internal programme that defies the ‘interests’ of external powers; and has a foreign policy beyond the status quo foreign policy. How is a leadership like that to be accommodated?

The ‘people’ however, who have been made to think that they have the power of vote, have been tied to the very fragile strings of false slogans and hoax promises. They are unaware of the trickeries of populism played upon them by those whose strings are being pulled by the internal deep state on the one hand and by external power points on the other. The question however still stands: can matters of the gravity of national security and national economy be given in the hands of voters who are neither trained in these matters not well-informed therein? Can economic projects and trends that take decades to move and foreign policy that is built on historical precedence be flouted every five years? Can the common man who is a farmer, an artisan, a primary school teacher, a labourer, be given to stamp upon an economic policy or a strategic doctrine that has been written down by experts of relevant institutions? Surely you and I cannot even read fully what they write.

So, how is the democratic system expected to work then? How can the popular vote carry real and legitimate power? How can a safe balance of power be made between institutions, elites and the common people? Perhaps the answer is to be explored in expounding upon what value people’s power can potentially hold. Surely the average person cannot be an expert in economics, education, health, strategy etc, nor can any single electable be an expert in all these fields, nor is s/he expected to be. All that is expected is that the electable is a true representative of the aspirations and welfare of his/her people. And the electable can be that only if s/he is a truthful, honest, moderate, insightful, altruistic, forward-looking, and one who understands the cultural and religious values of their people – not one who is a technocrat, or extremely wealthy and boastful, and who can spend millions on sloganeering, processions and even bribing.

And in the end, the average voter can only be expected to rely upon his/her basic notion of good and bad – neither can the electable be perfect nor the voter’s assessment of him/her! The only hope in democracy can be that millions of voters would aggregately tilt towards the good, the truthful and the uncorrupt!

But the sad truth is that the electable is corrupt, the ballots are rigged, the establishment is weary of political force, and that the people are too sluggish to find the truth of each electable, and that the people’s choices are influenced by false rhetoric and sloganeering of the electable. With all this, there is little chance of people’s power being exercised fruitfully!

Can a people, constituting of millions of striving souls, be expected to come out then, in a revolutionary way, against the very status quo it is embedded in, to vote for a truthful leader? That is not normal human behaviour; nations are steered like that in several decades if not in centuries, not every five years.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2022.

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