Heywood distinguishes different
political parties through the objectives and representations of their
ideologies, for example, the difference between constitutional and
revolutionary parties, the representative and integrative parties and the cadre
and mass parties. However, what I have witnessed within the Pakistani structure
is that every political party has in fact one common objective; to have
undoubted control over the political system and public opinion, such that
sovereignty always lies with them. Even
when they claim to represent public opinion, they aim at increasing their realm
of voters, which would in turn increase their chances of governance in the
coming term.
This brings me to my question;
being the democratic state that Pakistan is, does the existence of a few major
political parties allow democracy to prevail? The few mainstream political
parties of Pakistan sustain their polity through the symbiotic relationship
with each other, and amongst the people of the party. This indicates that along
with every term benefiting from the calamity of the previous, there is undeniable
competition. Furthermore, these handful
of parties have been interchanging control amongst themselves creating barriers
for any new party willing to enter the arena, while depriving the public from
any fresh leadership. The public has
become so used to the idea of voting for one of these, that they have been
shaped to believe that it is the only way of exercising their control over the
country they rightfully belong to. However, in reality their right to vote is
simply a means for the powerful political parties to implement regimes that
benefit them.
We assume that existence of
political parties is the democratic way of polity. Instead, it is a source of tyranny
and oppression, no different from an authoritarian dictatorship. The public is left
with no choice but to fall under the structure of these parties, while being
deprived of their rightful privileges.
2 comments:
Yes, It is true that our country have lack of leadership. lack of democracy within parties is leading to decline of political parties and therefore, there are many coup data and military rules in our history. another thing there is lack of intellectuals in political parties, there is lack merit in political system therefore it is not sustainable.
Your take on political parties implies that the parties are solely working for their own personal gains and opressing the public. While it may be true in some scenarios, people who vote for certain parties do get what they want to some extent. For example, people vote for pml N because they
know that it will help their industries and businesses even if their policies represent their personal gains. Similarly, people vote for PTI because they feel that Imran Khan will stand up for their rights which he did regarding the rigging.The fact that he failed is a different debate altogether. I believe that regardless of the flaws and corruption in our system, sometimes people do end up getting what they want.
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