The noble steeds

It will be hard to find a parallel to such a pyrrhic victory in three centuries of democratic development. When was the last time political parties went to a constitutional court to seek restrictions on freedom of association and their own functioning? This is called cutting off the nose to spite the face and our politicians have done it wonderfully since the very beginning.

Victory was guaranteed to political parties who went to the Supreme Court with their writ petitions against the Election Act 2017. It is a time of transition when non-elected institutions are keen to peg their tents inside parliament. They find parliamentary horses neighing at their doors, offering them a ride to the inner sanctum of the temple of the people where the magic of legislation takes place. With such noble steeds at their service, they don’t even need to unsheathe their swords. Somnath is theirs without a battle. Congratulations to Ayaz Khan Niazi and Ayaz Zardari.

“The triumph of unelected institutions over the representative ones is now complete,” wrote Babar Sattar in these pages a couple of days ago. When elected institutions are defeated, the downfall belongs to the people. In Imran Khan, we have the greatest Trojan horse this nation has ever had. From the unassuming, almost funny Chaudhrys of Gujrat to the prince of Banigala, the Trojan horse technology has come a long way.

The Trojan horse may be a great contraption. But it remains ineffective until someone pulls it into the besieged city. Asif Ali Zardari has done the trick. The city lies in ruins – almost. Zardari himself has metamorphosed from a frenzied warrior who is resolved to strike brick with brick to a pliant indentured labourer serving at the national brick kiln. It is only his smile that remains a constant.

Why did he do it? This question raises images of brazenfaced defences given on television screens with fake emotionality. The arguments essentially boil down to this: he did it because the PPP has been wronged for so long, particularly at the hands of Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s. It should be a wonderful explanation if you are a psychoanalyst explaining the working of a criminal mind. Your subject has turned into a murderer because of childhood trauma. Does that justify an icon of democracy turning into a collaborator and sidekick of a demagogue? The ANC under Mandela might have burnt South Africa to ashes by using the same argument.

I argued in my last column that authoritarian populist politicians are doing the job that is normally done by authoritarian rulers. They do it not through their numbers but through their capacity to harass, intimidate and threaten. The populists get real traction when other parties that see their fortunes dwindling try to ride the wave created them. They fail to realise that the populist’s medicine is their poison. Imran Khan’s sails have swelled since the PPP jumped on his ship. His popular appeal might have dwindled since 2013, but his destructive capacity has increased manifolds. His job is almost done.

Their real magical ingredient is the PPP. In Europe, mummy parts from Egypt were regarded as a miraculous medicine called Mumia vera aegyptiaca well into the 20th century. The PPP is the Mumia vera aegyptiaca for the PTI. Asif Ali Zardari, with good support from his sister, might have killed and mummified the PPP, but it is not without use altogether.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two Harvard professors, have come up with some interesting arguments about the erosion of democracy in recent times in their influential book ‘How Democracies Die’. They argue that political norms are as important to democracy as rules and laws. They outline two crucially important norms: “mutual toleration or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals, and forbearance, or the idea that politicians should exercise restraint in deploying their institutional prerogative”.

However, demagogues “attack their critics in harsh and provocative terms – as enemies, as subversives and even as terrorists”. In Pakistan, they also attack their enemies as blasphemers and it means an invitation to vigilantes to eliminate them physically. They also warn that: “[a] demagogue’s rise to power tends to polarise the society, creating a climate of panic, hostility, and mutual distrust.”

Pakistan’s two most important political parties had reached the same conclusion when they signed the Charter of Democracy in 2006. No amount of wisdom could have foreseen the eruption of an authoritarian populist on Pakistan’s political stage at that time. It was two months later that Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams launched Twitter.

Despite all setbacks and difficulties, both the PPP and PML-N stuck to democratic norms till 2013. Their legislative achievements during the period will remain unparalleled for a long time to come. The 2013 elections started the Trumpian era in Pakistan – an era defined by Imran Khan’s politics.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warn that: “isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism or miscalculation leads the established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperilled”. Political parties showed that courage during the first dharna, but recoiled in terror thereafter. The results are in front of us.

Ziaul Haq wanted legislators to be ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’. My lords have extended this privilege to leaders of political parties as well on the insistence of the political parties that went to the court. The judgment states that: “…a party head must necessarily possess the qualifications and be free of the disqualifications contemplated in articles 62 and 63 of the constitution.”

This is because: “the Election Act 2017 empowers a party head to perform multifarious functions that have [a] direct nexus with the process of elections to... parliament and to matters relating to the affairs of political parties having parliamentary presence”. By extending ethical qualifications required for legislators to political parties, this verdict also restricts Article 17 that guarantees freedom of association in Pakistan. One wonders why our lords are not required to fulfil the same qualifications since they review legislation adopted in parliament.

The verdict fits into the framework of the PTI because its leader is the only one who is ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ in the country. Perhaps, no one has been so truthful and sagacious since the time of great caliphs. Perhaps, it also suits the new PPP because all labourers at a brick kiln are bound to be ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ since they know the consequences of being something different.

However, it should worry the people of Pakistan who must protect their right of representation as well as their right to form political parties and lead them. Let me leave you with these words from that must-read book (in the contemporary world):“democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy – gradually, subtly and even legally – to kill it.”

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan