PAKISTANI political parties often attribute the degeneration of elections to the battle of moneybags and their liking for king-like figures or dynasties for party leadership to the people’s lack of political maturity. This myth is the bane of Pakistan’s politics and it must be exploded if progress towards democratisation is to be ensured.

That elections have progressively been turned into a money game is an undeniable fact. The cost of buying a National Assembly/ Senate seat has risen from a few hundred thousand to crores of rupees and a provincial assembly seat costs only marginally less. The report that a newly elected union council chairman in Lahore spent Rs25 million for his success may be somewhat exaggerated but there is no doubt about an unprecedented increase in electoral expenses even at the local government level.

Equally undeniable is the fact that those who buy their elective offices at a high price have little time or inclination to safeguard the interest of their voters. More than anything else they are keen to garner the benefits of their status. Their expertise lies in changing their party labels at the most opportune moment. Dissent with the party leadership’s policies is a risk they vigorously reject. Besides they are sitting ducks for the establishment’s marksmen who are always present in the wings.

The people have been more faithful to their democratic ideals than their rulers.

This arrangement suits the forces of the status quo that are always afraid of the rise of the under-privileged to power. And that is the reason why attempts at controlling electoral expenses do not go beyond meaningless preaching. The losers are the people even though they may not be aware of it.

Likewise most of the country’s political parties are headed by cult figures or scions of political dynasties. The adverse effects of this aspect of Pakistan’s politics are no secret. No party led by a supremo with absolute powers can allow internal democracy or a system of collective decision-making. Those who inherit the mantle of leadership or owe their position to their followers’ weakness for hero worship are like banyan trees under which no growth of alternative or middle-rank leadership is possible.

A political party led by a cult figure is extremely vulnerable to accidents. If its head is removed the trunk will be reduced to a lifeless mass. The party may survive but it will not be the same again, as a political leader said the other day. The vulnerability of political parties also becomes a factor of the democratic system’s instability.

Any patriarchal or dynastic leadership of a political party must rely on a network of favourites, instead of democratically structured party cadres. The party will distribute offices in government, if it comes to power, by favouring kinsmen, loyalists and sycophants. While in opposition, such parties are afraid of developing subject specialists among their members lest they start staking claims to ministerial posts in areas of their specialisation.

Once it is understood that the escalating expenditures in elections and absence of democratically structured parties are against democracy and the public interest both, we may address the question as to who is responsible for this state of affairs — the political parties or the people?

This inquiry should lead us to the days when the big powers decided to close the era of colonial exploitation and proclaimed the right of all people not only to independence but also to democratic governance. Whether replacement of colonialism with neocolonialism, that is, perpetuation of the erstwhile colonial power’s hold over its former colonies without bearing the cost of an army and a colonial administration, was the objective or an unintended result is not the issue at the moment.

The founders of the post-colonial order perhaps believed that all countries freed of colonial bondage would take affirmative action to facilitate their transition to democratisation. In Pakistan’s case, the state has consistently failed to remove the main obstacles to the establishment of democracy.

The first governments of Pakistan (1947-1954) did adopt adult franchise and gave women equality with men as voters but, they tripped while trying to deny East Bengal the principle of one-man one-vote. The adoption of religion as the bedrock of the polity deprived non-Muslim Pakistanis of their right to equality with Muslims and the situation was further aggravated when parliament increased the number of religious minorities.

Worse than anything else, the state resolutely sustained feudal practices in agriculture, the centre’s stranglehold over the federating units and women’s subjugation under a rabidly intolerant patriarchy. Finally, Gen Zia set the state on a course that has been taking it farther and farther away from the democratic path. Now democratic institutions are under great threat from a pseudo-religious militancy. Has all this been done by the people or by the custodians of power regardless of the robes — democratic or authoritarian — they chose to wear? It is the political parties that are responsible for denying electoral space to ordinary citizens and for failing to democratise themselves.

The people on their part have been more faithful to their democratic ideals than their rulers and the political waderas. They brought down the Ayub regime, forced Ziaul Haq to hold elections and later on the bitter pill of a party-based dispensation had to be swallowed. The holding of regular elections, the inclusion of Article 3 in the Constitution, the abdication of Gen Musharraf and the 18th Amendment have been the result of people’s pressure on the state and the politicians. Some political parties have surely helped them but the people have been the primary force behind these achievements.

Today, Pakistan’s democratic experiment is in dire straits but there should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that Pakistan can survive only as a truly democratic state and that the people will ultimately achieve their goal. The only question is whether the political parties will lead the masses or will be led by them.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015