HARDLY has the dust from the local body elections settled that charges of rigging are flying across the political landscape. But this is nothing new: virtually none of Pakistan’s elections have been free of controversy and rancour.

One problem is that we are a nation of bad losers. Whether it’s a hockey match or a general election, we blame our opponents for cheating, and the referee for being partial. Currently it’s the Election Commission that is drawing flak for siding with the ruling coalition and its candidates. No doubt the usual set of dirty tricks is being used to help PML (Q) and MQM candidates, but even if the elections had been absolutely fair, I have no doubt the crescendo of complaints would have been just as loud.

Clearly, there is a systemic problem here. Or rather, a set of interlocking problems that makes it impossible for genuine democracy to put down roots. Part of the chemistry of our inhospitable soil has to do with the repeated army interventions that have blighted political development in Pakistan. But looking beyond this obvious issue, we can discern a number of other serious difficulties.

For one, the rewards of electoral victory are so lucrative that nobody wants to lose. The other side of the coin is the high cost of defeat: in the name of accountability, political rivals are mercilessly harried and hounded by the victors. Once in the opposition, you are less than a nobody: vulnerable to real and trumped-up charges, politicians on the losing side can often be pressured to join the ruling party.

Then there is the role of the bureaucracy. Long gone are the days when officials were expected to be neutral. Now, if a field officer does not help the official candidate, he can expect a swift transfer to the perkless wilderness of being a civil servant without a job. The creation of the Officer on Special Duty is a wonderfully convenient invention whereby somebody can be punished without having to chargesheet him, or giving him an opportunity to defend himself.

But the sad truth is that most civil servants do not wait for orders to surrender their conscience. Now, when they are told to jump, they only ask how high. This transformation of attitudes means that it is virtually impossible to conduct free and fair elections in Pakistan. The huge advantage a sitting government enjoys by virtue of its control over the levers of power means that short of military or divine intervention (often the same thing in Pakistan), it is impossible to unseat it.

The lack of spine that now afflicts much of our bureaucracy has inevitably infected the Election Commission which is no more and no less than any other government department, at least in the public perception. The Chief Election Commissioner, although endowed with a vast array of powers under the Constitution, has seldom ruled against the government of the day. While he is technically independent, he hardly ever asserts his status except in the matter of perks.

What is true of the Commission is equally true of the higher judiciary. When political issues are referred to the Supreme or High Courts, it would be naive to expect them to rule against the government. Indeed, Pakistan’s political history would have been very different today had independent judges taken a stand on the side of democracy. But while they enjoy sweeping powers under the Constitution, they too are viewed as an adjunct of the power structure.

With the bureaucracy, the Election Commission and the judiciary all squarely on the side of the government of the day, what chance does the opposition have? Or, indeed, what chance does democracy have?

So why do individuals bend so swiftly when they have the constitutional means to stand upright? One problem is that the state is seen at the trough at which the high and mighty feed. To join in, you have to be one of the team. For medical treatment abroad, for sending your kids on foreign scholarships, for a plot of land in an official housing scheme, and a host of other goodies, you need to be on the right side of the ruling elite.

But if the state can be warm and nurturing to its favourites, it can be mean and vindictive to those outside the fold. Unless you play by the establishment’s rules, you face an uncomfortable future as an OSD or worse. So the motivation to please those in power is strong. Historically, too, the bureaucracy in the subcontinent has little tradition of independence and honesty. The traditions the Indian Civil Service tried to instil here were transitory and disappeared a generation or two after the Brits left.

Underlying these different causes for the failure of democracy is the general lack of tolerance that is such an integral part of our ethos. We are, by and large, incapable of accepting that others have the right to divergent views. And by extension, we refuse to acknowledge that an opponent can have the right to govern. In cricketing terms, we want to bat on forever, and to ensure this, the umpire is perpetually on our side, turning down appeal after appeal of the opponents.

When people find that peaceful, legal channels for change are blocked, they resort to illegal, often violent means. The intifada broke out in Palestine when peaceful means got the Palestinians nowhere. The insurgency in Kashmir erupted in 1989 when the Indian government refused to address the problems of the Valley. Similarly, the many manifestations of lawlessness in Pakistan are usually caused by desperate people resorting to desperate means. They find that the odds are stacked too heavily against them to overcome by constitutional means, and form armed groups to attain basically political ends.

A reader recently asked me on e-mail what can be done to ensure that democratic traditions are respected. I have no easy answers. If a society is unwilling or unable to tolerate dissent and divergent views, no law can bring about the transformation needed to make democracy work. Ultimately, political will and personal will have to converge to bring us to a point where we are willing to play by an accepted set of rules. This is known as a constitution, but judging by the tatters we have reduced ours to, we have a long way to go.