In Pakistan, the process of filling public leadership positions – from vice chancellors and regulators to judges and economic advisors – follows a predictable ritual: a vacancy is advertised, a search committee is constituted, interviews are held and an appointment is announced.
On paper, it mimics global standards of transparency and competitive selection. In practice, however, these mechanisms are often little more than formal cover for decisions already made in drawing rooms, backchannels or political offices.
This is not an occasional lapse. It is a pattern – one so entrenched that even the most publicised appointments in academia, policy institutions, and regulatory bodies rarely evoke surprise. Everyone knows who will get the job before the process even begins. The outcome is a system that routinely sidelines the competent and independent in favour of the loyal and pliant. It has eroded the country’s intellectual and institutional base, discouraged bright professionals from engaging with the state and deepened public cynicism toward governance.
Public appointments in Pakistan begin with newspaper advertisements, often worded with lofty intentions about qualifications, vision and leadership. But a closer look reveals how easily this tool is weaponised. Ads are frequently vague or oddly specific – broad enough to include a favoured insider or narrow enough to exclude a more qualified rival. In some cases, the ad appears after a decision has already been made, serving as a legal formality rather than a call for competitive recruitment.
This issue is especially pronounced in university leadership appointments. Multiple audit reports and court cases have flagged irregularities in how timelines are manipulated, how eligibility is flexed, and how key information is obscured to favor pre-selected candidates. The public may see an ad in the paper, but those on the inside already know who’s being appointed.
Globally, a search committee is expected to actively scout, assess, and recruit the best possible candidates. Its job is not merely to screen applicants, but to ensure that top talent – especially those who might not otherwise apply – is brought into the fold. In Pakistan, however, the so-called ‘search committee’ functions more like a passive interview panel, waiting for a bureaucrat to supply a list of pre-screened applicants.
Worse still, many of the most qualified candidates choose not to apply at all. With little trust in the integrity of the process, and a widely held belief that outcomes are preordained, they opt out. This leaves a narrow field of hopeful insiders, rather than a robust contest among visionary leaders. For professionals in academia, the private sector or the diaspora, the risk of reputational harm or public embarrassment often outweighs any potential gain.
The search committee, then, becomes a stage-managed exercise in endorsement, not excellence.
For those who do appear before the panel, the interview is typically shrouded in opacity. Panels often lack domain expertise – civil servants interviewing economists, or politicians evaluating scholars. The questions asked are unstructured, the criteria for evaluation undisclosed and the scoring arbitrary. No recordings are kept. No feedback is shared. The most important phase of the selection process remains completely unaccountable.
Several reports from higher education and regulatory sectors reveal that technically strong candidates are frequently overlooked in favour of ‘safe’ choices – those who won’t challenge the status quo. In regulatory agencies like Nepra or Ogra, for instance, technical experts have often lost out to bureaucrats or politically connected applicants. In universities, scholars with serious research credentials and international experience are routinely sidelined in favour of politically amenable candidates.
The cost of this broken system is not abstract. It is visible across every sector of public life.
In academia, university rankings remain dismal. Research output is negligible. Faculty morale is low. Leadership positions, instead of driving innovation, have become sinecures for loyalists. The Higher Education Commission itself has faced corruption allegations and institutional collapse directly linked to poor appointments.
In economic governance, institutions like the Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance have failed to attract or retain professional economists. Instead, generalist administrators and donor-funded consultants – neither invested in long-term strategy – occupy critical policy roles. A 2019 World Bank report noted Pakistan’s overdependence on external consultants and its chronic failure to develop internal capacity.
In the judiciary, recent amendments and politically tinged appointments have reignited fears of executive interference. When judges are chosen for ideological alignment rather than jurisprudential competence, the entire justice system’s independence comes into question.
Across the board, the outcome is institutional atrophy. Vacancies remain unfilled. Appointees lack legitimacy. Reforms fail because the people tasked with implementing them were chosen precisely for their unwillingness to disrupt the system.
Fixing this system is a battle against entrenched interests. But it can be won. First, advertisements must become meaningful tools of outreach, not formalities. They should include precise, measurable criteria and be disseminated widely to attract serious talent.
Second, search committees must be reconstituted as genuine talent-scouting bodies. They should be independent, professional, and diverse – comprising subject-matter experts, civil society members and industry leaders. Memberships must rotate, deliberations documented and conflicts of interest declared.
Third, interviews must be structured, recorded and accountable. Clear rubrics and published evaluation summaries can limit the space for manipulation. Fourth, specialised technical tracks – whether in economics, education or regulation – must be created and protected from bureaucratic appropriation. Pakistan needs professional services insulated from the churn of political patronage.
Fifth, the judiciary must be reclaimed as a guardian of merit – not its assassin. In theory, courts offer a final recourse against arbitrary appointments. But in reality, litigation in Pakistan is slow, opaque and vulnerable to manipulation. Lengthy legal battles do not restore justice – they delay it, exhaust reformers and reward status quo actors. Too often, courts are used not to protect merit but to weaponise procedure against it, allowing those with influence and legal muscle to stall fair appointments indefinitely.
And finally, media and civil society must name and shame rigged processes. When merit is subverted, it must become a public scandal – not a forgotten footnote.
Pakistan’s crisis is not simply one of capacity but one of moral failure. The system consistently chooses the obedient over the competent, the loyalist over the reformer. And in doing so, it reproduces mediocrity at every level of governance.
The tragedy is that many of the country’s best minds have already walked away refusing to waste time competing in rigged tournaments. If those left behind continue to play by the old rules, Pakistan’s institutions will remain trapped in decay. If the country truly wants change, it must begin where it all goes wrong: in who we allow to lead especially in technical positions.
The writer is a former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. He tweets/posts @Nadeemhaque and his Youtube account is @SIAlytics
