Making a Mockery of Democracy

My mother (Benazir) always said democracy is the best revenge. [Bilawal Bhutto]


More than anything, perhaps, Benazir was a feudal princess with the aristocratic sense of entitlement that came with owning great tracts of the country and the Western –leaning tastes that such a background tends to give. It was this that gave her the sophisticated gloss and the feudal grit that distinguished her political style. In this, she was typical of many Pakistani politicians. Real democracy has never thrived in Pakistan, in part because landowning remains the principle social base from which politicians emerge. (William Dalrymple, The Observer, Sunday December 30, 2007)

Waging democracy in the spirit of revenge is the worst form of democracy. This shows the type of democracy which Benazir Bhutto’s (BB) Peoples Party wanted to enforce in Pakistan. It appears that she was motivated by a spirit of revenge on the army. That probably runs in the family. It is said that her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), never forgot nor forgave those whom he perceived as his enemies.

Democracy in Pakistan is tantamount to holding elections, whenever possible, and counting the votes. The party which wins majority of the votes then forms the government which is called the democratic government. It doesn’t matter if the party that wins is itself democratic in structure and substance, or not.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was founded by ZAB in 1963 and since then it is controlled by Bhuttos. There are no open elections to choose the chairperson, for example, of the party; the power and leadership is inherited dynastically. BB assumed the party leadership after her father’s death and now it has descended on BB’s son, Bilawal. Her husband, Zardari, the notorious 10 per center, will effectively control the party as co-chairman, under the shadow of his 19-year old son. According to Dalrymple, “Within her party, she (BB) declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her. When he persisted in doing so, he ended up shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances outside the family home. Murtaza’s wife Ghinwa and his daughter Fatima as well as Benazir’s mother, all firmly believed that Benazir gave the order to have him killed.”

What can be more undemocratic than this?

According to The New York Times (Bhutto’s Son and Husband Named Party Leaders, December 30, 2007), “The decisions on the future of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party were made at a closed-door meeting in the sprawling family estate in the south of the country where the two-time former prime minister grew up.” The 19-year old Bilawal accepted the chairmanship but said he would continue with his studies at Oxford University. What credentials does Bilawal have to be the chairman of the party? He barely qualifies to cast his vote in the elections. His father Zardari is the co-chairman of the party. Peoples Party deserves to be banned for its blatant undemocratic operation. A party that doesn’t practice democracy within its own ranks is very ill-suited to establish democratic traditions in the country.
BB’s death is tragic like her father’s; she didn’t deserve to be removed from the political scene by a gruesome murder. Many political scientists believe that the rise of Islamist extremism is due to denial of fairness and justice to the common and ordinary people of Pakistan at the hands of both the army and the politicians rule. They have suffered far too long and now it seems that they are resorting to set some sort of equilibrium. If this process takes suicide bombings and other violent measures to remove the ruthless and unfeeling (for the poor), and corrupt politicians, so be it, they seem to argue. This is neither good for the country nor for its healthy traditions like democracy, for example. But they have been driven to the wall and left with no good alternatives.

Dalrymple quoted from Ayesha Siddiqa as follows: “Both the military and the political parties have all failed to create an environment where the poor can get what they need from the state. So the poor have begun to look to alternatives for justice. In the long term, flaws in the system will create more room for the fundamentalists.”

Those who are seeking to establish democracy should begin to establish it at the grass roots. The political parties which seek to contest elections must abide by some fundamental requirements. Their parties should be rid of dynastic control (like PPP) and democratized. Otherwise, Pakistan’s Constitution should not permit them to contest elections. It is not the intent here to lay out in any detail the methods by which this can be done; it wouldn’t be difficult. Once the parties are democratized, it is hoped that they will nurture the democratic norms when they win the elections and come into power. Otherwise, a government of an undemocratic party is as bad, if not worse, than the government of an army dictator.

BB’s assassination should be an eye-opener for the people of Pakistan, particularly the politicians.