Khursheed Shah has set the cat amongst the pigeons with his suggestion that the elected government term be four and not five years. According to him, “this change will end all conflicts.” But why stop there? Why stop at four and not three years, and while we are at it; why not restrict Prime Ministers to two term limits? The concept of ‘democracy’ comes from the ancient Greeks; interestingly, the ‘Council of 500’ in ancient Greece and the ‘Ephorate’ in Sparta used to change their members annually. Even ancient Rome elected ‘magistrates’ which held their positions for one year and were forbidden from taking the same position again for ten years. The reason? To limit corruption, (which is clearly not a modern phenomena and was a huge problem in the Roman republic), as well as to ensure that power continued to circulate and bring individuals with different ‘experiences’ into public service through the rotation of offices. In Pakistan, where the poor, rural and uneducated are dependent on the largesse of their ‘masters,’ it is no wonder that the feudal mindset continues to be rampant and no surprise that they need political patronage to ensure the continuation of their social privileges at the expense of the country’s majority. The current semi-democratic oligarchic system of political roundabouts- I go: you go- is not only perpetuating the feudal stranglehold, but since it does not allow the rise of new leadership along with new ideas and experience, it is not dispersing social and economic benefits to all.
In Pakistan, a three year term, especially if done alongside limits of terms for the prime minister, will ensure that the stranglehold of power is not concentrated amongst a few entrenched families and that new leadership (including women leaders) will rise through the ranks. In 1789, Thomas Jefferson feared oligarchy and pushed for shorter terms “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office.” Democracy is not about putting votes into ballot boxes (or tampered-with proof bags) for the same old politicians; it will not be enhanced by simply having election after election. It will only be strengthened when an environment is fostered in which there is room to criticize and protest openly; where real political debates and confrontations or demonstrations lead to the evolution of state policy and where state institutions– civil service, police, judiciary and regulating bodes and other public institutions like FBR and tax authorities— are made independent so that they cannot, as hitherto, be used for consolidation of the power of ruling political oligarchs. That is democracy.
Many will decry three year terms as impractical and expensive for a country of Pakistan’s size and resource constraints; they will claim it will hinder economic progress and not provide stability for the investors to put in their millions into the next power plant. Yet, as we know, many authoritarian governments have had much higher rates of economic growth than democracies, Singapore grew at an average 8% during Lee Kuan Yew’s ‘prime ministership’ – indeed Pakistan too has shown growth rates as high as 7-8% under military dictatorships. Of course, this does not mean that we should have authoritarian governments for the sake of economics. Absolutely not. It was Manmohan Singh who, under the Narasimha government in 1991, laid the economic foundations for where India is today. However, the average tenure of Indian governments in that decade was less than 2.5 years! Indeed, Italy has had a notorious number of short term political coalitions; nonetheless it is the world’s eighth largest economy. You know why? Because economic progress needs political consensus around key issues, stability of agreed legal frameworks and autonomous public institutions – like the civil service, police, judiciary, tax and regulatory authorities - which continue regardless of the governments in power.
The way forward for democracy in Pakistan is local government with short tenures and provincial and federal governments with slightly longer terms; we can argue and debate over whether it should be three or four years. The parliamentarians need to focus on their roles as legislators and visionaries for the state of Pakistan, for building consensus around core issues and leave the role of the delivery of local sanitation, health delivery, law and order, metro buses and road services amongst other things to the union councillor, the Tehsil and Zilla Nazims. Shahbaz Sharif needs to stop acting like a glorified Mayor of Lahore and start thinking bigger. Today, parliament has more young and dynamic parliamentarians around that, amongst other factors, benefitted from the sidetracking of age old oligarchies which allowed new entrants into the field in the early 2000s. Enabling the system of local government will allow the creation of grassroots democracy as more leaders who have worked through the ranks of local governments and know the people they represent, will be ready and hungry to take power at the top. But the million dollar question is: how will this stranglehold of oligarchs and their loyal cadres of bureaucrats allow this? The politician, with his control over executive levers of the state, needs to show his people that he is the only one who can deliver for them and hence continue with his social privileges that rely on absolute control on the hearts, minds and livers of the perpetually subjugated people. No wonder that it was Khursheed Shah’s PPP that joined the PML-N in destroying whatever progress Pakistan had made in local governments since 2002. May be now Khursheed Shah needs to become the Gorbachev of Pakistani politics and call for Perestroika and Glasnost; or is that asking for too much?
The writer is a Director at Governance & Policy Advisors. She graduated from Columbia University.
Np@gapa.com.pk
@GapaAdvisors