The finer points of voting in leaders

The year 2018 is not very far. During it Pakistan will vote in a new leader for what we hope will be two successive democratic terms – a milestone in itself in a country that has been ruled for the majority of its nearly 70 years in existence by military dictatorships. The constant threat of dictatorial regimes has handicapped even those elected governments that did survive their term.

Over the last three years, we saw how the khaki influence played a part in determining how policies are framed and then implemented. This factor has not only inevitably had a negative impact on the quality of the democratic leadership, but has through deliberate intent, closed off the channels from where leaders traditionally appear. All such potential avenues – student and labour unions, peasant movements, local councils and the political parties themselves – have been targeted by one dictator after another in an effort to weaken them.

Moreover, the annihilation of leaders in a series of unsolved murders which date back to the 1951 murder of the then prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan have also had a deleterious effect. Besides important political parties and their top tier leaders, parties like the Awami National Party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Balochistan nationalist parties and others have also lost middle level leaders, leaving them less and less able to effectively run their parties or to offer people what they need. It is hard to run democratic systems when its leaders are gunned down, one by one, by those determined to bring down the system.

Without the production of new leadership, new political activists or new ideologies it is challenging to see how people can be offered genuine choice. Right now, all the mainstream parties follow a sinisterly similar ideology, advocating strictly centrist or more often right of centre views on most issues. There are no diversions from this apart from a few parties in Sindh, Balochistan and KP which have over the years become increasingly redundant. In part, this is based on the fact that they simply do not have the means to keep themselves alive in a political environment which depends on wealth and power. The Supreme Court ruling delivered before the last general election on limiting spending has never been effectively implemented. But even if it were to be put in place, the question of how to find a political organisation that is able to offer genuine change while keeping the essential spirit of democratic choice intact remains.

The decline in the quality of democratic leaders is not an issue that is only limited to our country. We have certainly seen the system produce incapable leaders throughout the world.

We need only one example to elucidate this. Who would have thought that the US would have voted in a man like Donald Trump whose surreal conversation with Pakistan’s own prime minister leaves one almost shaking with apprehension regarding what is to come next. Trump either has very little understanding of politics, a terrible memory or simply a complete lack of anything resembling credibility. Surely even the often pompous Sharif cannot believe he sees Pakistan as one of the best run countries in the world. Something is clearly quite amiss, and the US is not alone in the list of countries where things have gone wrong.

India, which projects itself as the world’s largest democracy, has put forward for its people, through the popular ballot, Narendra Modi – a man who holds such hard-line Hindu nationalist views that even members of his own Bharatiya Janata Party were apparently shocked when he expressed some of them during his campaign. He is fiercely opposed to minorities in a country that has by tradition – since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru – valued secularism. Modi is also antagonistic towards Pakistan and some of his other smaller neighbours who he appears to despise. This does not make for good leadership, particularly in a country which is a regional power.

This also does not build a great deal of confidence in the democratic system. But we need to remember that it is the best system we have. The challenges it poses are ordeals we need to confront together as a nation.

We also need to try and look back at history to determine why only right leaning parties have been able to survive. Those that still claim to belong to the Left, such as the ANP, need to look at themselves and the actions of their own leaders in certain areas. It would seem that these leaders have not read the manifestos of their own parties.

The political groups we will be voting for in 2018, if all goes according to plan, of course fit in to the general mould within which the country has been placed. It has been shaped by forces which include powerful institutions aligned with extremist groups and by allies that have ties with the West who have introduced all kinds of hard-line ideas to regions that were once known for their tolerant acceptance of beliefs and cultures.

It does not seem likely that  two years from now, there will be any marked change in the political framework which currently exists. Yes, the PTI which had projected itself as a party of change, has lost a great deal of credibility. Fewer and fewer people now believe it is capable of delivering change but that leaves them with an even bleaker outlook than the one which existed before.

This truth is an ironic one given that people are desperate for a political grouping that will put forward before them a picture of a better future and of changed lives. Similar situations in Latin America and many other countries occurred earlier and the time should be right for it to happen in our country.

We can also emerge as a nation that thinks critically. While it will take time for the barriers which currently exist to be broken, it can definitely happen but only if the democratic system, for all its flaws, is able to run without restraint and learns to rectify its many faults. This process of correction may in itself produce people who are more willing than the present genre of politicians to look beyond what is immediately visible on the horizon or to think only of their own interests.

There are people in the country who ponder over why Pakistan has failed to live up to the promise that once lay before it. There is no reason at all why it should have slid so sharply downwards in terms of indicators that show social and economic development, healthcare, education, gender equality and others which reflect the lives of people.

It is important to initiate a process of thinking that is more focused along these lines so that we can be led in some definite direction. Simply hearing politicians deliver loud speeches that make little sense, make shrill claims about their own success or lambast each other will lead us nowhere at all.

This is a reality we will need to live with for some time. However, we must hope it is a reality that will, at some point, change and allow in a broader vision so that a genuine transformation in the lives of our citizens becomes possible.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com