Party politics is a concept stemming from "democratization" and one which takes roots in pluralism and representation of all factions of the community. Yet, we see the realistic picture is a far cry from the theoretical one. They foster divisions and animosity in the society and instead of focusing on the overriding problems corresponding to the entire population within territorial boundaries, political parties are merely groups of people waiting to prance at the opportunity of coming to power in the government, only to formulate the policies such that they further their political ideologies and preferences, mostly at the expense of the interests of the masses. Today there are mostly "catch-all" parties that try to appeal to the largest number of voters even at the expense of their ideologies only so that they are elected and get a chance to run the government.
They may come into public office via a democratic electoral process but how they operate once they are in power is as undemocratic as it gets. They immediately abandon all the promised plans of solving societal economic issues that had won them the elections. In Pakistan, the scenario resembles much that of political parties as decent robbers each one awaiting the opportunity to come to office and serve the means of their members solely. PPP was much less shy in their corruption whereas PMLN does so indirectly by the means of the many infrastructure projects that ultimately add to their pockets. The governments are meant to be servants of the people yet ultimately they end up using political offices to serve the interests of those people that belong to their party. The fairness in this system is lost on me.
Yet, the party system was meant to have checks and balances as well. Opposition parties are also present in the parliament so that the majority party doesn't take up the role of a Leviathan. Not surprisingly, they've found an escape tot hat as well by forming co-coalition governments and keeping a turn system. The political parties form agreements with the opposition such that when one party is in power, its opposition refuses to criticize its policies or to highlight its corruption so that when they are in power, the existing party in power will return the favor too, and its a win-win situation for everyone except the citizens of a nation. This eliminates scrutiny of government policies.
Parties are meant to provide coherence and stability to governments made of a majority party so clashes will be reduced and unity and agreement is fostered, yet ultimately the result is that this cooperation between the executive and the parliament is to such an extent that it becomes a system of absolutism, whereby whatever the executive says, the parliaments agrees to because they are all apart of the same party and so in theory it is not much different from a monarchy with the parliament as the couriers and nobles all provide confirmatory feedback and no one challenges the policies even within the party, so in turn the government is really run by the party leaders.
The absence of a true, honest and devoted party that represents the interests of the majority and serves the people, is why most educated classes have even lost faith in the electoral process that has been reduced to voting for the "lesser of the evils". There is no hope, at least in Pakistan that a party can come that will bring our nation to prosperity instead of serving its egoistic desires.
"The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods."
— H.L. Mencken
3 comments:
I like your title for it correctly explains the current party politics in Pakistan. They come in power making empty promises to serve the nation but end up plundering the state treasury to fill in their personal bank accounts.
Also, i would like to add that due to this vicious cycle of dirty politics, many people abstain from even casting their vote at the time of elections. Without a certain percentage of people expressing their views, how can the elected party claim to represent the views of the entire nation.
its true that the political parties do such promises before the happening of elections but they did nt perform that after the elections when they come to the ruling party. And you are saying that there is no hope in Pakistan that the any party that will come here and will work for the people, actually you know we dont give a chance to come to other parties to come in a government. Its the third time when Nawaz Sharif came then how we can expect that the party will come that will do work for the people.
This is a fantastic post - really thoughtful and well done.
It is disappointing that the educated classes have lost hope in the electoral process, but it makes sense given the current political climate and the utter worthlessness of our political parties. In theory, they should be advancing the interests of the nation. In practice, this often does not happen. Instead we have what Mencken desribes and the nation is worse off for it.
Building off what Laila was saying, I loved your title and it is problematic to claim popular legitimacy if not everyone votes. In certain countries - such as Australia - the government has aimed to curb a lack of voter participation by making voting mandatory. Could we do something like this here in Pakistan? Does it even make sense given our political context?
Great job!
Post a Comment