Political decay

Listen to article

A year down the tenure of this government, the political landscape is how it was conceived and implemented following the elections. A minority government is in place under a compliant prime minister. The 'state of democracy' and the 'rule of law' have both suffered adversely under the arrangement but in the assumed order those perhaps were the easiest to shed in return for dynastic and political favour and absolution from cases of corruption that the prime minister and his family were facing in the courts. If it has meant corrupting the judiciary, defacing it, and packing it with 'judges of choice', that is exactly how democracies slip into autocracies. Add to it the incremental denudation of individual rights in a supposed democratic order and the decay is complete.

There are two aspects to it: one is how the 'powers that be' organised a climb out of the dumps that the country was in following the dissolution of assemblies in 2022 and the uncertainties it left in its wake; and two, it was hoped that the political order which was emplaced would slowly return the country to a state of political stability and predictability from the doldrums that politics had descended to in a silly stand-off between the political parties and with the institutions. A default was on the anvil and an economic melt-down a certainty; for a nuclear-capable nation boasting of a military that stood in world's top ten the mismatch was unsustainable and had to be righted in immediate instance for credibility of national sovereignty to sustain. Emergent resort then was to institute the PDM government. Fresh elections would be the most democratic choice but those were shelved in the muddle left behind by the silliness in patently self-serving politics which offered few prudent options.

The 2024 elections threw up a split mandate - popular understanding is just the opposite. The PTI, in popular perception, carried the elections with a heavy mandate despite the odds but were denied the chance to form a government with the majority shaved with some ingenious management at the Election Commission following the ballot. It is almost universally accepted that the PTI had no chance in hell to return to power in the aftermath of the disorder and chaos it left behind when it dissolved its own government in dire conditions and a state of widespread confusion. It simply would not have been 'acceptable'. Period. If that sounds undemocratic, gulp it. We live in such times. It is largely understood that this fact alone is the root of the dissonance and disorder in our politics as we speak. Would the alternate have been orderly? That again is uncertain. And that is the irony.

An improved state of democracy with increasing support and stability would have been the hope of the sponsoring authority but far from it. The instability has only increased and perpetuated forcing the government to push harsher legislation to somehow control an unravelling state of inept governance. Reverting to an improved state of democracy under a political dispensation would have been the hope of many but it hasn't materialised, and why should it? It serves the government well to keep the fracas going validating their relevance and building its stock. If earlier in the PDM, they claimed that they 'sacrificed their politics' to 'save the state', they are now 'sacrificing democracy' to 'save their politics'. If it means that Pakistan is sliding into being an authoritarian, fascist order, that is exactly how it stands in this age of patent political manipulation. Fundamental rights are at risk, and an already weak rule of law in an elitist culture stands further degraded in a compromised judicial structure. Balance of power within the three pillars of the state stands disturbed, and the media - society's watchdog to retain democratic norms - controlled. These are not signs of any promise in a state.

Liberal governing orders the world over are slowly turning illiberal with the rise of the right-wing political sentiment. This takes root in laissez-faire economics globally resulting in acute inequality and a reaction to a corporate culture of greed and maximum profitability. Economic dissidence resulting in mass immigration has disrupted the political and social order in these economies pushing them to a culture of exclusion and protectionism. Nations that were known to stand for democracy and human rights are immersed in their own upheavals unable to attend to degradation of democracy and circumcision of individual and human right in less developed societies and nations as in Pakistan earning the latter opportune respite.

Under such a state the politics of Pakistan is stagnated and the hope that stability will return after a reasonably long stint of a political set-up - even if a minority government, settling ruffled feathers - remains unfulfilled. The government continues to struggle to find legitimacy and credibility. The fate of the PTI too remains stuck. Any and all efforts to break the status quo have returned blank with almost all other parties well content with their share of spoils in governance and resources. The PTI has a full and critical province to mind and is ironically a partner to the state and its (mis)governing mechanisms. This perhaps was the most optimal recourse to the decision-makers to keep all on-board in the effort to recover the country out of its dismalness. It obviously hasn't delivered.

Whether the power quarters wished for the government to circumscribe individual liberties or play mayhem with the judicial system is unlikely beyond their interest to charge and try those who they found involved in excesses of May 9. But the government has used the subterfuge of a hybrid order fully in their favour by legislating what has been PML-N's long-held agenda to arrogate control of the media and the judiciary. PECA to them will control the social media - the tool of choice for their nemesis, the PTI, to propagate its narrative. Judicial activism and wholesale independence has always unnerved the PML-N; hence is under assault. Establishment, which used to be the arbiter in most of the contentions within politics, must now look the other way to attend to its own compulsions. PML-N finds it opportune to shape the political, social and judicial landscape in its favour, especially in Punjab. How the people think or will respond remains to be seen.

Popular political legitimacy is the key to stability engendering hope of an economic turnaround. For it, all quarters, government and the opposition - politics per se - will have to rethink their role and responsibility towards the state and the people. They cannot be guided by patent tribal or party-interest and will have to rise above those trappings into thinking and acting in the interest of the people and the state. Sadly, that cannot be said of politics today. It remains mired in self-serving gratification.