It is now all about Aug 14 it seems. But is it? Isn’t everything about the 14th a tactical distraction from the real strategic concern that neither our political masters nor the faujis have the courage to meet head on: as long as the present institutional power structures exist, we’ll keep failing irrespective of who rules the country.

Consider.

Civilian governments, no matter who leads them, do not lord over the entire national pie. They have never had uncontested control over neighbourhood policies, they can do nothing with debt servicing and little with defence budgets, and the khaki corporate interests also remain more or less sacrosanct. Add public-sector current account payments to this and my back-of-the-envelope calculations tell me that we are talking about 70 to 80pc of the pie here.

Imagine how deep the dilemma is for any Pakistani prime minister: you win an election promising a reversal in fortunes, only to quickly realise that the rules of the game are frozen. You’ve got to prove yourself by manipulating 20 to 30pc of the pie as best you can. No matter what genius you bring along, this would prove to be a herculean task.

Civilian governments do not lord over the entire national pie.

Next, the compounding factor: our civilian administrations have left much to be desired in managing even their share of the pie. Indeed, the urge to defend them in this highly constrained environment aside, do a collective read of the years of civilian rule and you can’t but abhor the mess they were.

The civilian sphere has been subject to mismanagement, pilferage, and neglect. And while there are many individuals within the political spectrum who espouse confidence, the bulk is not fit to be put in charge of such a complicated nation’s destiny.

This — the combination of the all but non-negotiable limits on civilian power and woeful incompetence within the civilian sphere — is Pakistan’s Gordian knot.

How do you fix this? There are basically two views here.

The first says that the army has no business encroaching upon civilian space and must go back to the barracks and follow Islamabad’s orders.

Of course, this is unquestionable. But it defies a basic principle of institutional power politics: status quo beneficiaries do not give up space voluntarily. Especially not in cases where the ‘opponent’ is perceived to be weak and where the status quo power is driven by a guardian mindset — that they believe they alone hold the key to national interest and survival.

Option 2: civilians utilise their 20 to 30pc space efficiently, improve basic governance, and acquire moral legitimacy over time. Proponents argue that if elected governments get to this point, they’ll have mass support and the military will have no space or desire (depending on who you ask) to keep the status quo frozen.

Unfair as it is to put the onus for reformation on the civilians, this view is certainly more pragmatic than simply wishing the military away.

Could our civilians pull this off?

To answer this, you’ve got to wonder why we expect the current stock of politicians, who rise on the basis of patronage and often see meritocracy as a threat, to deliver in ways that would truly give them moral legitimacy.

Some respond by arguing that the real hope lies not in the current stock but in the fact that if you allow an uninterrupted process of democracy for another 10-15 years, a new crop of politicians, more capable and carrying less baggage, will emerge.

Absolutely correct in as far as the hope must be pinned on a new crop. But misplaced if one thinks that just repeated elections will make this happen.

Go no farther than India. For all the accolades about un­­interrupted democracy there, take a look at the political class. Some change over 65 years? Yes. An overhaul of dynastic and hierarchical politics leading to less corrupt, more selfless politicians? No.

Without stretching this comparison, the bottom line is you can’t focus on elections in isolation if the goal is meritocratic politics. The system and context in which they take place must be evolved as well.

In Pakistan, you’ll have to focus on changing the nature of patronage politics, shifting what parties think their voters desire, creating mechanisms for new classes to enter and rise to the top in politics, and reorienting the poll processes so that the contest is not reduced to just one province every time.

A few silver bullets: holding a national census that will alter patronage patterns like nothing else; ensuring intraparty democracy to create space for revolving party leaderships; and redrawing provincial boundaries, especially breaking up Punjab which will ensure a fairer distribution of power and resources in Pakistan.

Only after this will the civilians be in a position to wrest their rightful space from the military. I’ll be hopeful when I see inqilabs promoting this agenda.

The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington, DC. 

Published in Dawn, Aug 5th, 2014