Pakistan has been under direct military rule for about 30 years of its national life. The rest have been the years of uncertainty, instability and political engineering. As a result the quality of political institutions has degraded. According to the Freedom House estimates, Pakistan scored 37 out of a maximum of 100 marks in 2020 in terms of political freedoms and is labelled as partly free country. Interestingly, in the category, Pakistan has fared better than only three countries, namely: Tanzania, Mauritania, and Nagorno-Karabakh. All the countries further down the ladder are categorised as “Not free.” Not many will miss the irony that despite the public’s unreserved infatuation with the political processes, democracy has remained an elusive goal in Pakistan.

Recent history around the world has some scintillating lessons. Almost all established democracies witnessed tough battles between public and autocratic rulers before the public wrested control of power. Conventional wisdom suggests that only a few win from stalling the democratic process while the vast majority is marginalised. The reason is that the public interests are not aligned with the interests of autocratic rulers. The democratic system is premised on a system in which rights and responsibilities are clearly defined and are backed by rule of law. In autocracies, the whims of the despotic rulers dictate policies and frequently push the countries to the brink, often resulting in destructive warfare and widespread poverty and disease.

Political systems can rarely be defined in binary terms. While autocracy and democracy could be considered to sit on the ends of a theoretical political spectrum, in practice there are many shades of grey between autocracy and democracy. Stakeholders in sautocracy and democracy continuously jostle for power at many levels. In many developing countries in Asia and Africa, autocratic rulers and juntas routinely face resistance from the country’s political leadership. They look for weak links in the political systems to exploit those. As a democratic system runs on the principle of the majority opinion, political parties are routinely used to scuttle the majority political opinion.

The problem with Pakistan’s democracy is that it has been stabbed in the back by both military dictators and politicians. The politicians’ penchant for hurting the cause of democracy is deeply embedded in the political genome structure of Pakistan. Ironically, the rise of at least two, and according to another view, at least three, mainstream leaders in Pakistan is attributed to the blessings of the establishment.

Gen Ayub Khan appointed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the commerce minister in 1958. After many twists and turns in national politics, which included the civil war in East Pakistan and the fall of Dhaka in 1971, Bhutto became the president in 1971. His share of responsibility in a unilateral postponement of the inaugural session of the National Assembly after the 1970 general elections that catalysed the dismemberment of Jinnah’s Pakistan will continue to remain the topic of heated debate in Pakistan. The relationship between a civilian leader and the military establishment came full circle when Bhutto was executed during the martial law of Gen Ziaul Haq. The bad blood created by the infighting in Pakistan was so extreme that even after Bangladesh’s creation, Mujib secretly urged India to rip apart what remained of Pakistan by backing insurgencies there.

The political trajectory of Nawaz Sharif was less dramatic but, in some respects, has had more lasting consequences for Pakistan’s political culture. Bhutto had started nationalising key industries as part of his socialist agenda. The industrial estate of Mian Sharif, a notable industrialist of the time, was also nationalised by Bhutto. Ziaul Haq exploited the anti-Bhutto sentiment of the Sharif family by enlisting the support of Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif. The younger Sharifs were critical strategic assets for the dictator because they could stem the pervasive influence of the PPP in the Punjab.

Nawaz Sharif became chief minister of the Punjab in 1985 and lent crucial support to the establishment in dethroning Prime Minister Junejo in 1988. Junejo had taken a series of steps that affirmed his democratic credentials and invited the ire of the military establishment. Later on, Nawaz Sharif provided crucial support to the establishment when he led the IJI to counter Benazir Bhutto. The PPP won the 1988 elections, but Benazir‘s stint in power was marred by a no-confidence move orchestrated by the establishment.

Nawaz Sharif became the prime minister following the 1990 general elections against the backdrop of widespread allegations of electoral fraud and use of money to enlist the support of anti-PPP elements. The mutual political browbeating by the PPP and the PML-N during the 1990s is a bleak chapter in Pakistan’s political history. How Nawaz Sharif developed differences with the military establishment and landed in jail and finally in the UK is an evolving story.

Disregard for democratic norms is not unique to the mainstream parties. Smaller parties have exhibited no less a weakness for realpolitik and are allowed to exist as “stabilisers” in national politics. The PML-Q is a case in point. It was a splinter group of the PML-N midwifed by Gen Pervez Musharraf. It remained a key player from 2002 to 2007. When the PPP rose to power in 2008, extreme hatred and bad blood between the PPP and Chaudharis of Gujrat notwithstanding, thirteen members of the PML-Q joined the ruling party. Six of the members got ministerial portfolios and the other seven became ministers of state. This was called “national reconciliation”.

It is not difficult to understand that to ensure their sustenance regional and smaller parties must play their cards “wisely.” But why should the mainstream political parties depend on expediency and realpolitik? Given its role in the recent years, the PPP can hardly be credited with serving the ends of democracy. It makes all the right noises about compelling national problems. However, when it needs to put its money where its mouth is, it balks. Its role in the PDM campaign and Senate elections shows its political approach and explains why it is virtually limited to Sindh.

The approach of the PML-N leadership is also riddled with contradictions. While Nawaz Sharif made a clear statement in the recent PDM rallies, Shehbaz Sharif has followed a vastly different trajectory. While Maryam Nawaz elaborates her father’s stance, Shehbaz Sharif is widely seen as taking a more conciliatory line towards the establishment despite his incarceration and is seen to be driven by the objective of acquiring power at any cost. This uncertainty is taking a heavy toll on the PML-N.

The PML-N gathered large crowds in several parts of Pakistan on the back of its anti-establishment narrative. However, the power show in Lahore, supposedly the citadel of the PML-N, was a disaster. The contradictions in the approach of the political alliance may explain the political attitudes of the masses and their commitment to the objective of democracy. The public is committed to the goal of democracy. Unlike Myanmar, where the people are tenaciously fighting the recently imposed junta rule, street power has generally been missing in Pakistan. One of the reasons the Pakistani public is reluctant to take to the streets is their prior and largely substantiated belief that their leaders are just an opportunity away from a compromise. The history of such political compromises with non-political forces has been the bane of Pakistan’s politics and a major hurdle to national development.

The contempt of the political parties is also reflected in other ways. Perhaps at no other time in Pakistan’s history have “electables” been such a key factor in the political landscape of Pakistan. It is a heart-rending spectacle to see the democratic parties ditching their values in their pursuit of power. Dynastic politics is another bane of Pakistan’s democratic culture. Granted that mainstream political parties are under pressure from various quarters to follow certain lines, what can explain dynastic politics? The derailing of the democratic process, time and again, has divested the political stakeholders of hope in the future. Consequently, politicians being on the lookout for windfalls does not appear to be an irrational response. That paves the ground for extractive and rent-seeking political behaviour where the public’s well-being is subservient to narrow personal and parochial interests.

The elected government’s contempt for the democratic process is revealed in their preferring ordinances to genuine legislation. The current government has turned its practice of castigating something in the strongest terms and then doing it in precisely the same way into something of a fine art. In these circumstances, democracy seems like a pipe dream.

The writer is an assistant professor in the    Department of Economics at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore    Campus