Steps Towards Democracy

A political person is appointed by the peoples and is responsible for hatching the development issues to the higher level of administration and improvises the innovative policies to improve the governance. This is one of the most respectable occupation and the elected person is considered prosperous national servant.  One of the most interesting enigmas is the process by which such 'servants' are selected. This process is referred to as the democratic where the community is given the option to mark on his favorite person's electoral symbol. The outcome of this exercise is a best servant that receives high number of votes.  The process consist of following three phases, phase-1: Pre-Poll, phase-2: During-Poll and phase-3: After-poll.

In this article the objective is to provide the hypothetical analysis about each phase under the prospective of a common Pakistani.

Phase-1: Pre-Poll

The pre-poll is the phase where the political entity reforms its social contacts by attending the funeral, marriage ceremonies; go for prayers and dinners parties etc.  The member explains his party manifesto and highlight the burning issues and vouch that his party is the final choice to pull out the nation from the current mayhem.  At this stage, the best exercise is to erode the corruption and incompetence of incumbent govern authorities by providing the references to the various cases and intend that their party manifesto is the only hope to prevent the Pakistan for additional disaster.  The member describes his fidelity and explains that how his party has suffered and faced different democratic peril and how opposition has curbed various ongoing projects. Similarly, the opposition has the same sentiments of how the government has blocked the national interest projects by bolstering the administrative discretion  The member cronies prepare various types of slogans that revel the ineffectiveness of opposite counterpart.  In short the members try to hide their incompetence by putting all garbage of corruptions and vitiated governance on the previous govern authorities and on the opposition.

Phase-2: During-Poll

The Phase 2 is short and interesting as the voter receives the higher level of importance and protocol from the member cronies. For instance, the use of vehicles, vans, cars, rickshaws and mini buses are common to take the voters in the polling stations.

Phase-3: After-Poll

The phase 3 is the actual epoch in the life of both voters and the winning member (servant). After the result announcement, the voters go the political offices to greet the winning member, enjoy a cup of tea there and come back home. The disarming journey of voter demise and servant ride starts as lot of issues upraised for him.

For instance the winning member feels that the party manifesto that brought him into this winning position is not in the wider interest of nation. He feels that, despite the corruptions (that he had proved during the election campaign) the other party is not bad as much. He deems that he can develop and serve his constituency better by joining the counterpart regime. Such ideological rejuvenation forces him to leave his incumbent association. So, do we need to obliterate such culprit system that is based on the personal goals? The answer is no, because the democratic system works like this. The ominous speculation is that the same members are going to rule the system for the next five years or more. Let it happen and allow our leader to check the temperament of the peoples.  Let the peoples bear the smashes of politician cronies on them. Let them observe how our political leaders fight each other and how they sit together. Let them witness various corruptions and one day these frustrated peoples will come out.  The day will be the 'day of judgment' and will be a staggering day for the political elite. The peoples will have their own court and the decisions will be made on immediate basis.

Election 2013: Political Parties Approach

Latest polls show that Nawaz League's nexus with Punjab-based anti-Shi'a terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has not hurt its popularity in Punjab during the last several months.

PML (N) Popularity:

In fact, it appears that PML(N) has successfully exploited Sunni majority's bigotry against the Shi'a in Pakistan, particularly in its home base in Punjab. Sharif brothers' PML (N) is now the most popular party in  Punjab with 59% approval and nationally with 41% approval rating  in Pakistan, according to the latest Gallup Pakistan poll. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is second nationally with 17% and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) third with 14% approval.

Exploiting Hate:

To put PML(N)'s popularity in perspective, let's look at the history of how politicians have exploited such feelings of hatred against minorities. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany by riding a wave of resentment against European Jews. In India, Narendra Modi solidified his popularity in Gujarat by approving of Muslim massacre in 2002. Ten years later, Modi continues to be the most popular chief minister in India.  While India's ruling Congress party governs only 8 states,  BJP's anti-Muslim rhetoric continues to help it retain power in ten of India's 28 states. Most Israelis continue to vote for politicians who maintain brutal military occupation of Palestine.

Militancy in Pakistan:

In Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto caved in to pressure from right-wing religious parties and passed a law declaring Ahmedis non-Muslim. This self-serving act did not save Bhutto. Anti-Bhutto riots gave Gen Ziaul Haq the opportunity to remove Bhutto from power. After grabbing power, Zia collaborated with the religious right to take advantage of average Pakistani's religiosity to consolidate his own power. Zia exploited the strong anti-communist sentiments after the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. He collaborated with the United States and Saudi Arabia to give birth to religious militancy in Pakistan, eventually leading to the creation  of Al Qaeda and the Taliban who, along with their allies and affiliates such as LeJ, continue to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan and elsewhere. Nawaz Sharif, too, is a creation of the Zia era.

Civil Society's Role:

Most politicians in democracies are followers, not leaders. They respond to sentiments of their constituents, even hate-filled and violent sentiments. Most of Pakistan's politicians and political parties have their militant wings or alliances with various militant groups who carry out attacks against those who disagree. Such venal politicians are part of the problem, not part of the solution to rising violence in Pakistan. 

Given the venality of the politicians, the only possible solution to this problem is to build public opinion against violence in all its forms. Once the people decide to reject bigotry and violence, the politicians will follow.

Who has the power to shape public opinion in democracies? It's the civil society consisting of the mass media, non-governmental organizations, religious scholars and other powerful public advocacy groups.

Why Should Civil Society Care?

It's in civil society's best interest to create an enabling environment for peaceful coexistence for freedom, music, arts, literature, culture and economy to flourish. Such freedom is necessary to promote creativity and ensure prosperity of the society as a whole.

Why Should Mass Media Care?

The media are owned by corporations who should care because a safe and secure Pakistan is the best way to increase their profitability. These media magnates should have a clear editorial policy to discourage incitement to violence. They should tell their anchors to stop spinning conspiracy theories designed to distract the attention of people from Pakistan's real threats which are mostly internal. They should encourage the people to take personal responsibility for their actions.

Why Should Politicians Care?

The politicians should care because they have to govern after winning elections. Here, they can learn from Indian BJP leader Narendra Modi.  Modi is still a bigot but he knows that he can not afford to alienate the whole world, particularly businessmen and investors who need security and stability to invest in Gujarat. Modi has used his anti-Muslim rhetoric to get votes but he has not allowed mass killings of Muslims after 2002. The lack of violence and continuing stability have attracted massive investments which have made Gujarat's economy among the fastest growing in the world.

Summary:

It's in the best long-term self-interest of Pakistani politicians and civil society  to work to reduce militancy and promote peace and tolerance in the country. This will help bring stability and economic opportunity to Pakistan's current and future generations.

Avengers Of Pakistan!!

After my first blog, I was thinking about the next step. I searched Google to find how to make the blog popular. A common thing was that you have to be specific to a topic and write the blogs on it but it’s not my panache of writing. I thought to try new things to keep diversity in the topics.  Then what occurs next in my mind are Pakistani politics, which is only topic where words speak louder than actions. We always expect cons from Pakistan politics but as the youth of Pakistan it is our moral duty that we always think of positive outcome and our media should also advertise more pros so the nation may acknowledge how matters can be corrected. We are stopped and not moving forward. When thinking optimistically I always think who can be the super hero of this nation or in a more heroic way; Avengers of Pakistan.

When i started writing about who can be the hero in politics, 95 percent would think of Imran Khan Tsunami (PTI). We know that the current PPP government is almost ready to be bestowed as the foulest government in the history books of Pakistan. New elections are just less than one year from now. I clearly don’t see any party winning with majority numbers. PPP will fight on basis of one chance by expressing the Benazir Bhutto legend in the form of Bilawal Zardari Bhutto. If by chance they win, Zardari corruption regime will continue in the form of Bilawal PPP government. On other hand, PML (N) will again try to repeat their previous campaign. I was thoroughly impressed with the last PML (N) campaign which won the hearts of people again, but it was Benazir’s sympathy vote that went against them, otherwise they would have been in a much better position. As for PTI, I feel sorry for the youth but I have to say that they have no proper framework prepared yet for an election campaign. They got us believing with the point that they are the only party who has not been given a chance and like the achievements of World cup, Hospital and a University they will do better. But this is Politics and they are not doing politics at all. Winning a world cup, making a trust hospital and a university is not political at all. The best possible chance for them to succeed is collaborating with PML (N). Amongst the Shareef Brothers, Shabhaz Shareef is really a man to honour. Though some would say his acts are political stunts but his entire career he has been a hard worker and a devoted politician. There are always conspiracy theories which go can go against anyone but where the past governments have had devastating effects on Pakistan economics, if PTI and PML (N) collaborate, then they can position Pakistan onto the right track.

The next super hero in my model of Pakistan is CJ Iftikar Chaudary. Though he is going to retire in 2013 but he has setup the perfect judiciary in the late phase of his career. Sometime I think that the movement we started for the protection of our country’s judiciary, elevated the nation of disbelief but the question is where would be he in next era of Pakistan politics? To me, his future is very uncertain and I don’t see him anywhere except in the PTI shirt. For that, PTI really have to prove their worth in the next election.

Abdul Qadeer khan is the unsung hero of Pakistan and the man who paid the price of good. Our nation should be ashamed of how we disregarded this person. In one interview, he said if anything he wished to change in the past, he would had never made Pakistan a nuclear power because of which he suffered at the hands of this nation.  In the future, I wish that he plays his part as the President of Pakistan though it looks like an impossible future keeping UN and USA in mind.

In the end, i would go with Nawaz shareef as Prime Minister because he is a politician who can play games with USA keeping nation satisfy unlike Imran khan as analyst. I would like to see more ministries of PTI so they kept their words and keep Pakistan safe  from corruption. Imran khan can play an external role by keeping the eye on party as Nawaz Shareef has done in this Present government.