Polarisation endangers Pakistan’s polity

The political landscape in Pakistan is fraught with polarisation and fracturing at an unprecedented scale. The populist politics of PTI Chairman Imran Khan has amplified voices of extreme dissent, thus setting off a motion of delegitimising institutions and undermining their leadership.

Worse, my-way-or the high-way-trend in his political rhetoric has weakened what amounts to democratic institutions and undermined democracy itself. 1) No election results are acceptable anymore. 2) Worse, a peaceful transfer of power is no longer feasible. And,

3) Abrogation of the constitution i.e. PTI’s Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri’s ruling against No Confidence Motion on basis of a notional regime change conspiracy and subsequent SC’s verdict against his ruling, means rules of the political game are no longer sacrosanct.

The ECP and its chief has been maligned leaving them with no remedy. Parliament has been made dysfunctional by mass resignations. The President’s office has been attempted to be reduced to a party sub-office. The periphery regions of Pakistan are caught in the crossfire as if they do not matter.

Delivery and focus of the incumbent civilian institutions particularly police, FIA and auxiliary organizations have been reduced to maintaining law and order and managing the opposition’s fracturing of polity, protest, and long and short marches.

Not even the country’s security institutions have been spared. They have been targeted systematically and names have been named of the top leadership to undermine their credibility and legitimacy.

These asymmetrical attacks have been subcontracted to social media platforms which have boosted the spread and multiplication of these attacks through their algorithms and AI tools. The shape of the attacks comes in various ways including fake news, and conspiracy theories. The reach of these fake news and conspiracy theories has raised serious questions endangering not only democracy but also our polity.

The infatuation of social media platform apps, with the “deep fake” world, has created the nasty phenomenon of fake videos and Whatsapp leaks. This is another manifestation of the onslaught of our values. Senator Azam Swati, for instance, is holding a press conference every day as a mark of protest but has not cooperated so far with concerned authorities to establish the credibility of such video. Whereas leadership of a top agency, particularly a very senior officer, is on the receiving end of these allegations with no access to a legal remedy for such slander.

The control of social media platforms as to what to watch has, on one hand, empowered individuals but, on the other hand, subcontracted the job of checks and balances of these big companies’ content away from the state. These platforms are now in control of shaping minds through fake news and conspiracy theories. This is why if these fake news and conspiracy theories are justified as part of free speech, free speech may need some checks by the state. This debate has not started yet but a new rather disrupting phenomenon is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Coupled with the efficient use of social media tools and their platforms, Imran Khan continues to leverage fake news and conspiracy theories in his discourse. For his style of politics using fake news and conspiracy theories, someone has this possible comparison to offer from German history: “The so-called Führerprinzip”. It implies that “the supreme duty of all party members is to exhibit absolute loyalty to a leader who defines what’s right and wrong”.

For Imran Khan’s followers, he is the supreme authority to determine right and wrong in the state, society, polity, and religion. The cult model of politics has posed extreme challenges and history is fraught with its adverse consequences for ordinary people and states.

This is a dangerous phase of our politics which has deepened the process of polarisation and fracturing. That no corrections are being applied by other segments of the state to reverse this process, is more alarming.

(Jan Achakzai is a geopolitical analyst, a politician from Balochistan, and an ex-adviser to the GOB. He tweets @Jan_Achakzai)