ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other key politicians are though trying to serve the democracy through their consensus political decisions, they seriously lack any such unison towards institution building or addressing the problems facing the people. Prime minister’s recent surprise decision to support the opposition’s candidate and PPP leader Raza Rabbani for the slot of Chairman Senate has been appreciated by all and sundry. Many term it a move to strengthen democracy. Nawaz Sharif received praises from many for similar political moves in the past like offering Balochistan National Party to form government in the province despite the fact that the PML-N is the largest party there; offering the post of Governor Balochistan to Pakhtoonkhawa Awami Party; inviting the PTI to make its government in KP despite Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s urge for a JUI-F-PML-N coalition government in the province; and allowing the MQM’s Ishratul Ebad to continue as Sindh Governor. Former president Asif Ali Zardari is also known for his politics of reconciliation and during the last PPP’s rule he demonstrated his skills of making all his political adversaries happy and even lured some of his staunch opponents to join his government as coalition partner. During the alleged “scripted” Dharna politics of PTI and PAT, all the opposition parties in the Parliament led by PPP also wholeheartedly supported Nawaz Sharif and his government against any illegal and unconstitutional mean to remove his government. This unity between government and opposition, both inside the Parliament and outside, has been generally considered and termed as move to strengthen democracy. However, except on the issue of terrorism specific National Action Plan (NAP) there has been no unity and resolve witnessed during the present or previous regime to address the issues like bad governance, corruption, injustices, favouritism, politicisation of civil bureaucracy and police etc which contribute towards the problems of the general public. The past PPP regime was really disappointing in the areas of governance or checking corruption and there has been no effort made to reform any institution. Consequently the problems kept on mounting for general masses. However, the PPP regime succeeded in bringing national consensus to introduce 18th constitutional amendment. The incumbent Nawaz Sharif-led government also took some commendable political initiatives but despite the lapse of 21 months not even a single administrative reform has been introduced to improve the governance, depolticise the police and civilian bureaucracy, check corruption, ensure merit based appointment, introduce speedy and inexpensive justice system and other such initiatives which directly benefit the masses. Not even a single All Parties Conference or meeting of top political leaders from both sides of the political divide has been convened by the prime minister to address the issues that directly haunt the people. If all political parties could agree on a consensus Chairman Senate, why don’t they sit together and concur on set of initiatives like tax reforms, effective accountability system, administrative and governance reforms, one economic strategy, merit based appointments, better health and education system and reformed criminal justice system. Virtually the political initiatives of the prime minister irrespective of their positivity, are seen as moves towards sharing of power between different political actors. Therefore, such political initiatives without much needed public problems-specific reforms and good governance would not be able to strengthen democracy. Democracy is strengthened only when it starts delivering to the masses, resolving their problems and bringing prosperity in the lives of the “have nots” instead of serving the elite and the rulers. In the post-Musharraf era and during the last seven years the country though verbally saw the revival of democracy, its fruits are yet far from the reach of the ordinary souls.
