Democracy in Pakistan is still a question mark
3 min read 07 Aug 2023, 09:03 PM ISTIts internal army dominance makes it difficult to relieve resource allocation of a military calculus. Imran Khan’s trial must get a fair review, just as its polls must reflect real choices
PremiumThe law applies to all. A democratic society may accord some privileges to holders of top office, but, as John Rawls noted in his theory of justice, this is conditional on everyone having equal access to such offices. The principle sounds clear enough. The complexities of public life are such, though, that when politicians have run-ins with the law, confusion tends to reign over whether it’s a bona fide case or one of political persecution. India just saw Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party get a stay from the Supreme Court on his conviction by a lower court for his alleged defamation of people named Modi. In the US, Donald Trump faces a battery of charges that range from a conspiracy to defraud the US, obstruct an official proceeding and deny citizens their rights, all related to the storming of its Capitol on 6 January 2021, to the former president’s alleged theft of state secrets and misreporting of hush money paid to an adult film star as a business expense. While India is the world’s biggest modern democracy, the US is the oldest. Neither’s judiciary is perfect, but they both command significant confidence in their capacity to tell false allegations apart from the truth when it comes to leaders in the dock. The same cannot be said of Pakistan, a country armed with nukes where ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan was charged with graft in selling off official gifts and jailed for it last week, an event that must be seen in the context of its muddled path to maturity as a democracy.
It’s not just about free and fair elections. How freely a country’s independent institutions function reveals how mature it is. In Pakistan, however, the institution that has both visibly and invisibly had the most autonomy is its army. Instead of being answerable at all times to an elected authority, it is an establishment unto itself that has long sought to call the shots in theatres that have no warfare of the kind it was set up for. So, as Pakistan heads for polls to its 342-seat National Assembly later this year, a hidden army hand in Khan’s troubles has been spied by the de facto regime’s critics who see the ex-PM as a target of top-brass wrath for turning his back on them after achieving power in 2018 with their tacit backing. In 2022, the former cricketer was ousted as PM when he lost a floor test in Islamabad that was suspectedly rigged against him by armed forces based in Rawalpindi a short distance away. Since then, he has mixed his Islamist shade of populist politics with calls to defend the popular will from army interference. By his preferred narrative, a plot was hatched to bar him from assuming his rightful role as Pakistan’s leader. His prison sentence has been taken by his supporters as proof of it. Unless he wins an appeal, he cannot seek election for five years, though his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could yet get sympathy votes as a party. The poor shape of Pakistan’s economy may favour the PTI, too.
Given a shared border and an old dispute over its northern part, New Delhi has no option but to keep a close watch on Pakistani power games. Although army dominance was once seen as offering us clarity on whose sign-on held the key to any peace pact, elected leaders in charge of its affairs will serve both our interests better. The brunt of an army-run state is borne by people who can expect better lives if resource allocation is relieved of a military calculus. Khan’s religious politics is disconcerting, no doubt, but his trial must get a fair review, just as Pakistan’s polls must reflect real choices.
