Democracy under siege – Seminar on Friday, January 20 at Press Club

Democracy under siege – Seminar on Friday, January 20 at Press Club

Islamabad: (Wednesday, January 18, 2012) Parliamentary democracy in Pakistan is once again subject to an existential crisis. Pakistan’s peculiar colonial legacy and the geo-political imperatives of the Cold War gave rise to an
imbalance within the state such that the supremacy of parliament was never definitively established. The military has ruled the country for more than half of its existence and elected regimes – when they have come to power – have been relatively weak and insecure
in the face of an overpowering security apparatus.

The demise of the Musharraf military dictatorship in 2008 precipitated cautious optimism across a wide cross-section of society about the prospects of a reinvigorated political process and a gradual
reduction in the power of the non-elected arms of the state, particularly the military. The backdrop for the restoration of democracy was a street movement featuring the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and rhetoric proclaiming the end of the ‘doctrine of
necessity’. However, subsequent developments suggested that the superior judiciary, instead of strengthening the edifice of parliamentary democracy, was instead asserting a new interventionist role that subjected the weak democratic structure to new pressures.

In recent months it has become clear that a new power game has taken shape in which the military establishment and superior judiciary are seeking to emasculate the parliament, with the tacit support
of the corporate media. The rhetoric of ‘corruption’, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘rule of law’ is being employed to delegitimize the elected regime, with a host of politically motivated court cases (NRO, Memogate) the means through which pressure is being exerted.
The parliament, and the government in particular, is also being exclusively blamed for the persistence and worsening of longer-term structural problems to do with energy, economic hardship and the deteriorating quality of public services. The implication is
that the vast majority of the Pakistani people want an end to the current democratic experiment in favour of ‘clean’ and ‘efficient’ alternatives.

In fact the public discourse is being manipulated and hard-won political freedoms are in danger of being subverted. While the elected government is, and should be, subject to public scrutiny for
its performance, the current discourse, and the ongoing court cases especially, represent a threat not only to the current regime, but to parliamentary democracy itself. Indeed, an interruption of the political process at this stage could also exacerbate existing
tensions and push the federation itself towards breaking point.

Progressives in the twin cities believe that a pro-democracy consensus must be forged at the present time to provide support to a besieged parliament. A public seminar to thrash out the various
issues at stake is therefore being organized in this regard. Given that mainstream parties themselves appear to be on different sides of the current divide, the purpose of the seminar is not to provide support to one or the other political force, but to issue
a call of support for the political process and to assert that only the strengthening of this process can deepen the meaning and practice of democracy in Pakistan.

In this seminar, distinguished speaker including Dr. I.A. Rahman, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Ayesha Siddiqa and Khadim Hussain are expected to share their thoughts with the audience.

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Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Jan 18 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry