Arguably no other demand receives so much popular support in Pakistan as accountability, or "ehtesab" as it is called in Urdu.

This is the reason that both political and military rulers stress the need for accountability because they know it would be well received by the people. Those seeking public support make it a point to demand accountability and highlight it as a central plank of their manifesto. This shows them in a better light as demand for accountability somehow means that those demanding it are also willing to be made accountable.

Despite the public wish, there has seldom been real accountability in Pakistan. In certain cases, accountability was launched with a sense of urgency and some sincerity, but political compulsions made the whole exercise partial and even vindictive. Rulers used accountability to punish rivals and sustain their rule. The institutions of accountability were politicized and structured to meet certain ends.

Politicians during election campaigns promise accountability, but they start dragging feet once in power. As a principle, the politicians never oppose accountability, though it is more likely that they want others and not themselves to be made accountable.

The need for across-the-board accountability is a familiar statement made by those in and out of power, but they label it political victimization when they are targetted and found involved in corruption and misuse of power.

The powerful military claims it has its own rigorous accountability system, though its secret nature creates doubts and prompts critics to demand transparency and openness during investigation of cases involving personnel of the armed forces.

In fact, some retired military officers have backed this demand as they believe that the armed forces would earn the respect of the people if the cases of corruption and misuse of power by its personnel are transparently investigated and its findings made public. A recent example showed that they were correct in their assessment.

When the army high command publicly took action in August this year against two generals who had retired but were recalled back into service to face investigation for misusing public funds while running the National Logistics Cell, the unheard move was widely appreciated and hailed as a breakthrough.

Army chief, General Raheel Sharif, was given the credit for making accountable Lt Gen Mohammad Afzal Muzaffar, who was reprimanded with the disciplinary measure of "severe displeasure" and Maj Gen Khalid Zahir Akhtar, dismissed from service and deprived of his rank and pension. They were punished for taking the wrong decision to invest $25 million borrowed from banks in risky stocks during 2004-2008 and ending up causing huge losses to the army-run transport company.

It is possible that in the past the two may have received punishment, but this would have been kept secret so as not to publicly shame senior army generals and demoralize the officers ranks.

Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, through his strength of character, showed the way by not tolerating misuse of power and wastage of public money, but he didn’t live long enough to institutionalize his anti-corruption ideas.

The first signs of corrupt practices in the new country were seen in the allotment of properties to migrants from India and the fake claims made by many others to grab houses, shops and land left behind by Hindus and Sikhs migrating from Pakistan. Some of the subsequent rulers mostly remained busy in the game of musical chairs as governments changed frequently through political bribes and inducements.

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The term accountability was first highlighted in Pakistan during the long rule of the militancy dictator, General Mohammad Ayub Khan, as he promised clean-up of the political system and pledged to go after dishonest traders. In 1959, he issued the Elected Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO) to punish an estimated 6,000 persons in a bid to destroy the existing political order so that he could rule unchallenged. They included more than 150 politicians who were disqualified from taking part in politics for eight years and scores of public servants dismissed from service.

Ayub Khan also banned the hearing of any case involving military officials in civilian courts through an amendment in the 1956 Constitution. When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came into power, he further amended it to ban a civilian from even filing an appeal in a civil court against a decision taken against him by a military court. Imagine years later, the 1973 Constitution was amended to establish military courts to try civilians as part of the measures undertaken to fight militancy and terrorism.

Subsequent military rulers General Mohammad Yahya Khan, General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf also ran their own accountability campaigns. Government officials were sacked on charges of corruption and misuse of power and sometimes politicians were punished to coerce them to support military rule or join one or the other King’s Party.

Musharraf institutionalized the process by establishing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in 1999 soon after capturing power through a military coup against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. His accountability drive was fierce and popular in the beginning, but it then became a vehicle of his political ambition. The NAB is still the foremost anti-accountability body in the country even though Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has established the provincial Ehtesab Commission in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the PPP government in Sindh has announced plans to follow suit.

Political governments too have set up or run existing accountability bodies. The Ehtesab Bureau under Saifur Rahman earned notoriety and became a liability for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his earlier stint in power. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and later her spouse Asif Ali Zardari took turns to try and make each other accountable without achieving anything. If one were to believe Imran Khan, they later took turns to rule and loot Pakistan by playing the role of friendly opposition to each other. To his credit, it must be said that Imran Khan has been the most vocal and committed on the issue of accountability and has not even spared his own party leaders accused of corruption in Khyber Pakhtunhwa. This is one major reason that the PTI not so long ago was called the party of change after managing to inspire so many people, particularly the youth.