Democratic Revolution
FARID ud DIN
The world today is in the grip of a democratic revolution. Throughout the developing world people are resisting and rebelling against the spirit of age.
Democracy is a system of institutionalized competition for
power. Democracy requires conflicts but not too much. Without competition,
conflicts and dissent there is no democracy. World's governments at a Summit in
2005 reaffirmed that "Democracy has a universal value based on a freely
expressed will of the people to determine their own political, economic, social
and cultural system and their full participation in all aspects of their
lives."
Even though the democracy is the most admired form of
political systems, it is equally difficult to maintain it as it abhors
concentration of power in the hands of a few. Democracy subjects leaders to a
mechanism of popular representation and accountability. This requires a party
system that can produce a government, stable and coherent enough to respond to
the competing interest. However the party need to have sufficient patriotic
sense and can rise above self. Democracy offers everyone a chance to pursue
worthy aims in life and enough sense of purpose and commitment to achieve them.
It takes great demands from each individual.
Inherent in democracy is another contradiction between consent and effectiveness. Democracy means "Rule with the consent of the governed. "Thus democracy enjoys popular legitimacy. This legitimacy requires a profound moral commitment. Democracy will not be accepted by the people unless it deals with economic, social and cultural problems, maintain law and order and brings justice, tolerance of opposition and dissent, a willingness to cooperate, accommodate compromise and a certain flexibility and moderation. The core of a democratic system is the concept of checks and balances and in the absence of effective checks the system looses the democratic concept of governance.
Free and fair elections are just the first step towards a
democratic system but it is not limited to elections rather to the functioning of
the government coming out of these. Democracy brings forth a critically
important question that pertains to valuing integrity, honesty and competence
in the nation's representatives who act as the guardian of people's wealth
drive benefit from the taxpayer's money even by lying and misleading.
Democracy is an splendid conception but it has the
disadvantage, at times, of placing in the lead men whose hands are dirty, who
are mired into corruption, who will sap the strength of their country not in
years but in a period of months.
Pakistan presents an ugly picture of democracy. There is
widespread corruption in almost every segment of the society. The concept of
democracy is being used to provide protection to some of the most reprehensible
acts in Pakistan. Corruption is fatal for democracy because it destroys the
legitimacy of the entire democratic process where the prospect of ill-gotten
gain is the sole motive towards the pursuit of the office, the democratic
process becomes an struggle for power rather than contest for the service.
The founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah had envisaged a moderate democratic state for South Asian MUSLIMS. The Quaid's concept of Pakistan was clearly rooted in the notion of a constitutional democracy. It is unfortunate that Pakistan's leadership was hijacked within a decade of its creation and the constitution was abrogated by the forces of dictatorship. Democracy became the business of a few families that owned undemocratic political parties that provide a protective shield to corrupt and incompetent people. The electrol process, a basic ingredient of democracy has been completely hijacked by the feudal that does not let the ordinary people coming from the grassroots of the society to take part in the electrol process of the country. Beside these there are many structural flaws in the democratic setup of Pakistan which prevent the growth of the constitutional democracy. Our self proclaimed democratic leaders did very little to change the dictatorial pattern of governance since the elected members to the assemblies mostly happened to be without vision and will, only pursuing for the personal glory and gratification. Rather they have deformed the democracy in Pakistan
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