Rescuing democracy
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OUR democracy is on its deathbed, felled by natural ills and inflicted wounds. These issues need legal fixes. But our elite rulers can adopt them only after large public mobilisations, such as those seen in Sindh against the canal projects, or even Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Democracy’s two basic traits are fair polls and civilian sway that slowly ensure its ultimate trait — good governance. Unlike regional trends, we have not seen both traits together even once due to the establishment’s hold, which even legal remedies have not ended yet. Both gaps exist today, as they have all along, and boost all our other defects. New legal fixes may help, like civilian oversight of spy agencies, mandatory modules for the powers that be with regard to the effects of their actions, and better criteria for appointing the members of the Election Commission and interim cabinets. But legal fixes are of no use when unelected powers intervene. So mass mobilisation via public watchdog panels is important.
If these two gaps are fixed, the next focus would be merit in the political system. The two gaps have infested the system with deep-rooted political brands — patronage, populist and extremist — that don’t win votes via merit. Disregard for merit has already propelled us to the edge of collapse. Some say parliamentary systems or even democracy can never ensure merit; they demand presidential or technocratic rule. Politicians must urgently start infusing merit in state policies to curb such demands. Given political will, easy short-term legal options exist even in the current system till merit starts to emerge naturally by, for example, putting in place criteria for key cabinet posts and filling them and legally mandated opposition shadow cabinets via new reserved technocrats seats.
Absolute power held by our federal executive leads to two more defects. Power isn’t diffused horizontally. The judiciary is now completely subservient to the executive after the passage of the 26th Amendment. The earlier system of appointing judges via the judiciary and bipartisan assembly committees was a globally applicable good practice to cut the executive’s hold over the judges. We must reinstate and improve this system via clear merit-based criteria and open applications to reduce the hold of chief justices in the process. Bipartisan parliamentary committees must oversee the work plans, and review the outcome of these, of ministers and their ministries annually. Power is also not devolved vertically. The informal ways that the federal set-up uses to cut provincial autonomy must be ended legally. The Constitution must define the terms, election schedules, finances and powers of the local bodies. The many ideas expressed to professionalise and empower the civil services must be adopted.
Gaps in our Constitution have led to multiple crises.
Party heads’ monopoly causes ills too. About 35 per cent of the seats (Senate and reserved ones) across both Houses are filled by party heads without direct elections, leading to nepotism and cronyism. Directly elected province-wide or multi-district Senate and women’s seats make sense. But since party heads will still choose all election candidates, new legal fixes must ensure the inflow of new faces and non-elites in assemblies. Laws must require parties to nominate and fund non-elites (based on family assets) on at least 15-20pc of the seats they won in the last elections and limit people to at the most three to four terms across all legislatures. Ranked choice voting can boost party mandates without time- and money-consuming run-offs.
Punjab’s large size, which masks complaints from its Seraiki areas, and the division of tax funds across provinces cause considerable ethnic tensions. Creating a Seraiki province and giving constitutional rights to Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir in the federation should be priorities. The weight of population in the formula must be reduced in favour of outcome criteria, for example, improvements in tax revenues and progress indicators attained by the provinces. Total control of the provinces with regard to local natural resources must be ensured. Outlays must be earmarked for the poorest districts.
Gaps in our Constitution have led to multiple crises recently, for example, on counting dissident votes, judges’ transfers and party elections. All constitutional clauses must be read with a magnifying glass to remove such gaps.
Many citizens’ groups are mobilising on different problems that all emerge from the lack of democracy. They must urgently unite to struggle for a new charter of democracy and governance to stop unelected elements from gaining total dominance.
The writer has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in political economy and 25 years of grassroots to senior-level experiences across 50 countries.
Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2025
