An old debate

This refers to the article, ‘Democrats or technocrats?’ (Jul 22), by Dr Naazir Mahmood. The writer has raised some interesting points. The democrats or technocrats debate is a wrong issue since it is based on the ‘either-or’ premise. Both the democrats and technocrats can coexist and ought to coexist. However, sometime, some technocrats use this ‘either-or’ dichotomy to advocate a presidential form of government suggesting that the parliamentary system of government has failed in Pakistan. This viewpoint is inaccurate. In the case of our own country, let us not forget that the presidential form of government had created more fissures in our society in comparison to the parliamentary form of government. More importantly, it had worked as a rather closed system. In support of their arguments, some technocrats magnify, out of proportion, the follies of politicians. Yes, the politicians do make mistakes, no question about it. But had not the martial-law-administrators-turned-civilian-presidents made serious mistakes. Of course they had.

The real issue is how the rulers construct their strategic decision-making structure with a view to get input from multiple and diverse groups to make high quality strategic decisions. In the strategic decision-making structure, three forms of inputs from groups of different background are critical for high quality decisions. Unquestionably, the first group ought to be the elected representatives, the second group should be from the senior civil servants and the third group could be professionals from different technical backgrounds to provide technical input. The presidential form of government is a more closed system and relies on minimum inputs. To form a diverse group for strategic decision making, the parliamentary form of government is more open and flexible than the presidential form. 

Dr Zafar I Qureshi (Lahore)