It feels that all you need is elections, free media, independent judiciary, and the Constitution. Much of this class lives emotionally disconnected from the rest of the population and their harsh challenges of survival and means to cope with them. The intelligentsia in Pakistan, especially the liberal/secularist segment, is most passionate about the Western liberal model focusing on freedom of choice, free speech, civil liberties, independent judiciary, and of course elections. Without substance, democracy remains hollow. But the form must embody good governance to empower people, and it can do so only by resting on free and representative institutions, constitutional liberalism or any other value-based system, strong rule of law, and a just and equitable social order. The form manifests itself in electoral democracy, sustained by a process of free and fair elections, and peaceful and orderly change of governments. True democracy has both form and substance. Has the current crisis - and the way politicians’ brazen preoccupation with the struggle for power is ripping the country apart while it burns - left any doubt that the “democracy” we have has been part of the problem, not the solution? In fact, it is this very “democracy” that has provided legitimacy to bad governance, produced weak governments opposed to reforms for fear of losing elections, and has kept recycling.
If any “good” has come out of the current crisis, it is hopefully the realisation that the conventional wisdom that Pakistan’s problems are due to a lack of civilian supremacy, or because the “democratic system” has faced repeated interruptions by the military rule, or that elected governments have not been allowed to complete their full term may not be quite true. Democracy is a dynamic, not static, process but Pakistan’s “democracy” is stuck.
What we have is something that looks like democracy, but does not work like one. In Pakistan, democracy remains both illusive and elusive. That makes us tolerate and endure a system that is not quite democratic and may never become so. Countries at varying stages of democratic evolution are all called a democracy, which adds to the confusion, as we, in our mind, expect all these models to be equally responsive in meeting the needs of society. One of the most perplexing debates around is on the subject of democracy, where it is easy to confuse concept with practice, form with substance and illusion with reality.
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