Re: What is democracy?
I hail from the country that has no written constitution. We have the Monarchy - the Queen opens the parliament every year, she is the source of many executive powers in the country including the power to dismiss the PM and reject a Parliamentary Act.
Yet Britain is arguably the greatest democracy in the world (at least in practice, and in my eyes).
So what exactly is the definition of democracy, how does it look and feel like in practice if a country with Royal Prerogative and no Constitution is far more democratic than let's say Pakistan.?
There has to be lot more to democracy if the United Kingdom is more democratic than the Republic of Pakistan. No?
Democracies in fragile states like Pakistan have failed to provide; two imperative public goods:
- Security
- Accountability
Democracy in Pakistan is unfortunately only defined as “General Elections”; a futile exercise -always had and will most probably always have the following three illicit electoral tactics:
*1. Voter Intimidation
2. Bribery
3. Ballot Fraud
*
By utilizing the above tools; the rulers (technically called Democratically elected) tends to remain in power three times longer than those who do not use the above mentioned three elements – so why and who will change the “system”? This system has politically correct name “Democracy” but sans Security & Accountability making it even worse concoction than nationalist authoritarian rule as you know Pakistan’s GDP Growth has absolute inverse relationship with “Democratic” Governments in power as opposed to Dictatorship– and that is not due to US Aid – as supporters of certain political parties claim – we can have separate discussion on it.
Also, elections marred by above practices can never create credible leaders; as illicit system was the core foundation on which the so-called democratic government came into power in 2013 as well and in 2008 too (most recently).
Rulers who are products of above “system” hold self-interests (their own wealth multiplies) higher than making the country prosper (public and state institutions fail) during their tweaked system which is dubbed as democracy.
The above cycle will invariably result in lack of national leadership that will fail in creating cohesion and national identity. Pakistan being no exception to this fact is now substantially more divided on the lines of ethnicity, caste, creed, sect, culture, religion than it was before and it keeps getting worse.
The concentration of ruling clans alienated the general public, and rulers took control of pivotal resources to multiply their wealth and ruthless power sans accountability; this resulted in higher level of poverty, wider gap between haves and have nots, economic stagnation, and insecurity to the point that Pakistan has become structurally (and it has nothing to do with military might or not) insecure.
The vicious cycle of above will not be broken by beneficiaries of the above “so-called democracy” as it suits the rulers since it provides them façade of wow factor of being called Democrats while failing to adhere to even the most basic tenets of western styled parliamentary democracies – accountable and answerable.
To answer your question; Yes!! Pakistan and Pakistanis believe that exercise of General Elections is Democracy - Nothing Less - Nothing More!
