Causes of the failure of

democracy
In

Pakistan By
Shahid Jamil
Overview
• Democracy has failed in Pakistan and nobody can deny it. Among the
almost 19 Prime Ministers that were elected by the Parliament, not a
single one completed his tenure, on the other hand 4 military generals
in which the 3 military Generals imposed Martial Laws and ruled this
country and each of them was able to rule for more than 8 years as a
President.
• The political behavior of our country’s political leaders, their lack of
vision, lack of cooperation and their personal interests etc brought the
military to power.
• The democracy in Pakistan was most of the time flopped and is still at
the crossroads.
Major Reasons of the Failure
• Feudalism.
• Manipulation of election process.
• Illiteracy.
• Repeated Martial laws.
• Weak party system
Feudalism
• Feudalism is the basic reason that leads towards the failure of
democracy because this is the feudalism that actually provokes the
situation.
• We see that our most of the political leaders act as feudal lords and
they consider and treat the people as their slaves and servants.
• Under the influence of these so called feudal, people cannot vote to
their favorite leader so they had to vote according to the commands
of their lords.
• These types of leaders consider the state as their own property and
they act like they are above the law.
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• In this system, millions of people are landless, they are living below
the line of poverty they do not have even their homes and their status
in the society is not more than a slave.
• Almost 70% people of Pakistan leading life in a feudal system and
rural traditions.
• Our leaders do not have any concern with the betterment of people
so they usually visit their constituencies for a few times,
• that's why our leaders do not know the problems that arise at the
grass root level.
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• Feudalism also leads towards another problem that is inherited
politics.
• Like if we see the example of inherited politics, we can see the
example of Bhutto family in which Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the leader
and he became the Prime Minister then next was his daughter
Benazir Bhutto and she also became the Prime Minister and now
most probably next would be Bilawal Bhutto irrespective of the fact
that he deserves it or not.
• These feudal lords, when see that things are getting worse and out of
their control, they manipulate the election process.
Manipulation of election process
• For a true democracy free and fair elections are necessary, without
these two components no country can make a true form of
democracy.
• It is the democracy that ensures the actual and genuine
representation of people in the Parliament.
• Without democracy it is not possible to conduct elections in a free
atmosphere without any manipulation.
• Because only the elections are the source of peaceful government
change.
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• This is the main reason of failure of democracy in our country that the
elections are manipulated by different means so the people come out
into the roads because their representatives do not come to power.
• In this regard Pakistan has not a good image to show because except
the elections of 1971 and 2006 to some extent, other all the elections
have been manipulated by different means either at pre, during or
post phase of elections
Illiteracy
• There is another main reason of the failure of democracy that is
illiteracy which is one of the major reasons and can play a major role in
the prosperity and development of Pakistan.
• Because the people who are illiterate they have no concern with the
politics of their country, they have no concern with the political
situation of their country and even they do not use their right to vote
because these people thinks that these all processes are useless.
• According to the census of 1998, literacy rate of Pakistan was 43.92%
and the literacy rate of rural places was 33.66% but the actual figures
were different and were more below than these figures and still it is at
worst level.
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• Still maximum part of our population is suffering from illiteracy so
they can not contribute in the development of country.
• Almost 20 million children do not go to school.
• The problem of illiteracy leads towards the poverty.
• For the illiterate people the bread is more important than the
education so this is also a reason for the failure of democracy.
• Even our some politicians contest elections on the basis of fake
degrees.
• In such a corrupt nation, how democracy can be functional
Repeated Martial laws
• Martial laws are also the important reason for the failure of
democracy.
• The question is that why the military Generals imposed martial laws?
The thing is that the failure of administration of different
governments created vacuum for the military and we all can not
disagree on this point that the military is more organized than the
civilian administrations.
• The failure of administration leads military to take over.
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• The first involvement of military into civilian administration was took
place in 1953 at Lahore to control the violence between the Ahmedis
and Sunnis.
• After that military has started to rule the country from 1958 for a
different periods of time.
• In 1958, General Ayub Khan took over the charge and he ruled till
1969.
• Then from 1969 to 1971, General Yahya Khan ruled.
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• Then from 1977 to 1989, General Zia ul Haq ruled the country and
then from 1999 to 2008, General Pervaiz Musharraf imposed martial
law.
• During all the four military governments some characteristics were
constants and same like, ban on political parties, dissolution of
assemblies, suspension of constitution, etc.
• These types of acts badly influenced the political institutions.
Weak party system
• Unfortunately Pakistan has not strong party system which is very
necessary for the true form of government and it also can stop the
military intervention into politics and from the non-constitutional
steps.
• For the betterment of democracy there are some facts without them
democracy cannot run, among them one of the importance fact is
that there must be a strong and efficient system of political parties.
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• Because political parties play essential role in strengthening the
democracy in different ways.
• Political parties do many important works like, they translate the
ideologies of people and convert it into a particular shape, they work
collectively to elect representatives, they work for the collection of
different opinions and then they comprehend them and the most
important is that they work as a bridge between public and
government.
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• If the political parties of a country want to do these all tasks they
must be strong and deeply rooted into the people.
• Unfortunately the system of political parties of our country is still very
weak.
• And they created vacuum for non-political forces to intervene into
politics.