CHITRAL: Pakistan’s politics has shown it’s colour once again. Elections have been held and clear and visible mandate is handed out by the people but ‘the power that be’ is not allowing that to materialise. This is the saga of Pakistan. It happened in 1970 and it has been happening in different forms and with different intensity all through. The injustice has not been against any one party but pendulated between opposite ones, depending on whom the establishment wanted to get into power at that time.
The problem with Pakistani politics is that it is not designed to deliver. Political party heads are more at logger head with each other than with the problems of Pakistan. Even voters vote against some one out of hatred for a person/party than a love for his opponent, and the opponent benefits by default in the process.
As long as political parties of Pakistan and their leaders do not set aside their personal repugnance for each other, gather on one single agenda of relocating the armed forces to their primary constitutional duty of defending the frontiers and not interfering in any way with the political process in the country, the situation in Pakistan will not improve. This is not an easy task and with passage of time rather becoming impossible- so the future of politics in Pakistan seems bleak, to say softly.
If Imran Khan thinks he can take on Nawaz Sharif, Zardari, FazluRahman and the establishment at the same time, he is badly mistaken. He would be wise to mend ways with his political adversaries even if he has to bite the humble pie and together fight against the elephant in the room. As this is not going to happen, so matters will continue as they have been and as they are and we will have the proverbial ‘more of the same’ going on in Pakistan.
Having highlighted the problem, the ultimate and viable cure to the cancer in Pakistan vis a vis political imbroglio engineered by the establishment, is to jump over to the out of the box system of ‘Meritocracy‘. If so done it will take care of all the problems/issues mentioned above and even more .. CN report, 12 Feb 2024
8 thoughts on “Why Pakistani politics will never deliver; what is the solution”
You have explained the symptoms well but you cannot get away with prescribing the medicine in one word. Please go through the pain of explaining “meritocracy” and how it should be applied to patients living in Pakistan.
Politicians all over the world hate their opponents but that does not stop them from doing their job , you don’t have to go far , take the case of India, Bangladesh ,Iran or even SriLankan , visceral hatred for opponents but they deliver governance and show progress, the elephant in the room takes advantage of that.What you term meritocracy is in fact honesty,it is the politicians who introduced corruption to government, Bhutto termed it party loyalty and lateral entry, to cover their tracks religion was exploited the army happily followed suit , introducing Jehad and shaheeds , today someone from the military dying in a road accident is given the title of Shaheed . Parliament is not a road to riches, till this is not understood by parliamentarians, the army will keep on calling the shots.
Fully agreed. Imran Khan’s arrogance and political immaturity are partly responsible for the situation in which he has been in. I don’t think he would ever think of a political dialogue with other politicians let alone take on the military for the cause of true democracy. His only goal seems to come to terms with the establishment, grab power and take on his political opponents – put all of them in jail. .. zak
Pakistan is off track, since it came into being in 1947. The founder did not know much about the country he got. A country in which more than 200 languages were spoken and after every 50 kilometres the traditions and culture changes. It is very difficult for such a country to become a nation. First of all he should have chosen a language which should have been English. All government and private schools syllabus should have been in English. The second thing he should have done was to discontinue with the civil services and judiciary. The system he should have adopted should have been the system that the Muslims rulers followed before the advent of the British in the sub continent.
You have encapsuled our political malaise and prescribed correct medicine. Without pushing back the wild elephant in the room to its due space our democratic space will remain polluted. It is time for national unity govt to salvage the country before we reach point of no return.
I agree with Prince Nisar Jilani. He has stated the root cause of our failure, for instance, Indians today are at the top executive positions in all of tech and Econ institutions in the world because of the grasp of the English language. Our leaders deceived the Awam . None of our politicians are sincere to the poor folks even today. None of them talked or stated in their manifesto on how to keep the army in the barracks or religion to the mosque, or none or them talked about improvement in human right condition or freedom of speech or relationship with India etc
Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy class. The working of our democracy is also largely a plutocracy because almost 95 percent of those who reach assemblies are wealthy people. Poor can’t afford to contest elections in Pakistan. The post- 2024 election has almost renewed the previous status quo whereby no party is majority to form independent and honorable government. Any party going to form government has to appease and win other parties and it would come only at the cost of ministries and cabinet slots and that would in turn will put heavy burden on the already weak exchequer and the danger of sudden no- confidence hanging over the sitting government like Damocles sword. So it looks like business as usual.
Secondly, all those going to form government and grab ministries are the same old faces running the show for the last several decades and no new revolutionary face is seen who can change the status quo.
The reason for this discouraging situation is lack of education and our cosmetic and simplistic attachment to religions. Justice can be secured when those in need of justice know that they need justice and that justice is denied to them. If the vast majority even didn’t know about their innate rights then how can they demand justice? When the majority isn’t ready for their rights and justice this musical chairs and vicious cycles will continue.
One way to come out of this situation is to form provincial and federal cabinets out of those people who pay the highest taxes in the country in chronological order and that could be just one form of meritocracy as those paying highest taxes are certain to be otherwise educated. Just an idea!
@ Mir Wazir Khan. A Very valid proposal of changing the system vis a vis selecting the cabinet depending upon the highest tax payers in the country in that order. Although it is no alternative to the system of ‘Meritocracy’, but certainly falls in that line, i.e doing away with the typical election system which has brought only misery to the country due to being flawed in so many forms including excessive manipulation in ways and interference from the military, etc.