by Ali Abbas 27 April 2021
The elites can be defined as persons who hold leading or dominant position in central institutions of any nation-states or countries. They can be belonged to individuals, elite families, political and politico-religious parties in a country. Moving ahead, Pakistani politics has been determined by some handful political and politico-religious elites since its first day of birth.
- The question is why some particular parties, families and individuals attain so powerful status and positions in Pakistan since long?
As a developing country, Pakistan has been struggling for the strengthening of its democratic institutions, economic development and securing its sovereignty for the peace and progress for long time but all in vain. There are so many other reasons for the failure of democratic institutions and political parties and political instability as well. This article speculates the dilemma of political elite’s contribution to the failure of country as democratic institution. Democracy belongs to the people, rights of the people and people have right to govern by themselves through free and fair electoral system. According to Linchion, the definition of democracy is “Government of the people, for the people and by the people”.
The important tenet of democracy is accountability, the politicians, leaders or elected members are accountable to the mango innocent people. Within the true framework of democratic norms and values Pakistan’s democracy remains in delusion. Actually in Pakistan the political parties’ belongs to certain families and individuals. The party serves the family or individual interests rather than the people wills or dignity. Pakistan’s politics is dominated by the 6 major elites from 1947, these political elites have different sphere of influences and power but they have made alliance with each other in order to take the powers and authority in their own hands. Devolution of Powers from top to bottom remains questionable, the powerful elites remains in power in every changing government. They are bureaucrats, landlords and religious clergy and business elites. These parties came into power the same elites or powerful influential individuals are given the most powerful ministries and portfolios. In front of the world, they pretend to bow down to the party so-called manifesto, but after coming into power they just end up working towards their own goals and past-revealed agendas.
Democratic values and norms cannot be cannot flourish within the power struggle framework of some groups or individuals. The powers should be devolved from top to bottom, from center to the provinces, and districts, union councils. Empowering the system of local governments for providing services and giving authority to impose taxes, collection etc. The purpose of this system is to transferring political and administrative power from higher tiers of the government to lower tiers. The true democracy reveals the government of people according to their interests and prosperity. Democracy brings governments closer to common people for greater accountability and well understanding of needs and priorities of the citizens. Transferring powers and authority to the common people actually belongs, the political stability and unity of the nation can be improved. The local government can empower the common people within the societies to accomplish their prime social and civil task. For the purpose of serving common citizens interests the decentralization of powers is the most essential and crucial to safeguard people interests and also their participation within the governmental powerful corridors.
The powerful political elites raising slogans of common people interest but when it comes to the transformation of powers from higher to the lower tiers then they reluctant to share or transfer to the common public. Mostly political leadership belongs to the background of feudal society, the typical South Asian politics where feudal leaders are most respected. The elected leaders have acted or performed as role of dictators. The most important dilemma is the political elites cultivate a selective approach by eliminating or excluding those who have different opinions or disagree with their setup narratives. In democratic countries, the process of political involvement and participation by civilian leaders and political parties. These are the important institutions of freedom of expression and mobilization of public for political purposes in a democratic way. Unfortunately in Pakistan, the democratic forces themselves involves in power struggle and serving the handful elites. It is an open truth that even there is no democracy within political parties, individuals are powerful, and the leadership of political parties has been in the hand of some powerful elite families. These elites considers that they have right to govern Pakistan, they have right to serve their own personal interests, they are not accountable to the people. The undemocratic actions of political elites, individual interest based politics, and tug of war have badly suffered the functions and performance of party-political governments. It has directs effects within the societal behavior and also country’s progress, the nations has suffered a lot with these ideological confusions and visionless leaders.
The ruling elites apply selective manners of democracy, take the handful and selective political leaders and exclude all other democratic political leaders. This policy created the division among parties and institutions. The advocators of democracy must function in true spirit, should offer equal rights for all citizens and respect the free speech and emphasis for the diversified ideas and encourage the free flow of information. This may support for the creation of strong democratic culture within the country. The poor performance of elected leaders and assemblies in federal and provinces make the democracy more complex.
[Ali Abbas, “Lack of Leadership and Political Commitment in Pakistan” Modern diplomacy, May 14, 2020. available at https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/05/14/lack-of-leadership-and-political-commitment-in-pakistan/]
The elite class frequently involved in organizing its resources to transform the state to protect their vested interests. Each ruling regime emphasized some ideology to legitimize their systems. The weak nationalistic approach and pro-imperialistic character of Pakistani ruling elites bought the collapse of party politics. The ruling class in Pakistan had three components: feudal class, the capitalist class and the middle class, these classes are fake and vassals of imperialism. These classes are always looking towards their imperialist bosses for their guidance and direction.
After reviewing the existing literature about the elites and Pakistani politics there can be different types of elites, they are influential, powerful and holding the authority in the country. The political elites, bureaucratic elites, religious elites and professional elites performing their role in the politics of Pakistan.
Elites can be defined as a powerful or influential figure in a country, these people or groups have enough power or capabilities to expand their influence according to their own will or wishes. The certain powerful people have the ability to set the rules, values and can easily reform or change the rules within the societal structures. Furthermore, the elite can be a wealthy and influential individual or a group having intellectual and wealth superiority within the society. The elite process has two main factors, first is “inherited or hereditary” from his/her parents or family, the person can be elite due to his/her family status or wealth. The second on is “acquired status” this status become elite through educational intellect or intelligence. Through proper education, training and intelligence, a person can acquire status and this status gave him power and this power can convert him into a wealthy person “an elite”
In Pakistan, majority political elites are “inherited or hereditary” by their family or so called political parties. They are the prominent representative in Pakistan politics having largest number of representatives in the decision making parliament. The inherited political elites also compromise or prefers with their own vested interests rather than the state and public. On the other side the most influential groups are “religious elites” they are also “inherited elites” the religious groups and leaders have strong following in the society, they influence ordinary people in name of religion we can call “emotional blackmailing”. They have the street power and ability to call people in streets to fulfill their own interests. They can easily mobilize people and motivate the societal mindset according to their personal directions and narratives. We can say that political elites (parties, individuals) are using religious elites as tool for acquiring power. Just like some other countries, religion has been used or an effective tool in the politics of Pakistan. Religion has used for political purposes because the ordinary people are emotionally touched with religion. The religious sentiments have been manipulated or used as an effective way for vested interests.
The high decision makers in the political culture or political structure which monopolies the political power and influence major political policies and occupies the most important and central command of political structure are political elites in Pakistan. Senate of Pakistan is the Upper House of the Parliament. Being the House of the Federation, the Senate of Pakistan gives equal representation to all the federating units in order to promote national cohesion and harmony by counterbalancing the numerical disparity among provinces in the National Assembly. The performance of senators are still questionable, they person who cannot win general elections by public votes has been elected as senator by powerful political parties. The wealthy and rich tycoons invested money in senate elections. The sales of votes, horse trading such kind of hypocritical behavior of political elites brought disgrace to the Pakistan’s democracy. The former Pakistan’s Ambassador Rustom Shah Mohmand writes that both government and opposition parties blaming each other for the use of money in senate elections were so unashamed loud that Pakistanis were embarrassed. The country that takes pride in democratic norms, and representative decision making would take measures to safe against the manipulation of electoral structure against use of money.
[Rustom Shah Mohmand, “The Senate elections that shamed Pakistan” March 9, 2021, The Express Tribune, available at https://tribune.com.pk/story/2288198/the-senate-election-that-shamed-pakistan]
This is the saddest part of the democratic system of our country. Such kind of practices are taken but no one has been held for accountable. The so called democratic institutions never played a role in institutionalization of democratic values and norms, nation building policies and they never ensure accountability. The powerful elites prefer their personal and party interests rather than the common people. That’s why the collective role of parliament to formulate the policies according to the interests of common people has been weakened. The tested and failed members of parliament have paved ways for the undemocratic forces to rule the country for decades. The leadership of any country is the reflection of its people, the society is law abiding, aware and obedient the corrupt and incompetent leadership cannot be imposed.[MoonisAhmar,2015,https://epaper.dawn.com/DetailImage.php?StoryImage=14_08_2015_706_001]
Democracy has nothing to do with these incompetent leadership, but the actual problem arises with those who contest elections and elected by undemocratic means, after assuming the power corridors these so called political leaders/elites strengthen VVIP culture by looting the wealth of taxpayers. The effective and successful democratic country is the one which have strong political and civil institutions based on transparency and accountability and rule of law. Unfortunately, the poor performance and tested and failed political parties and their inherited leadership paved the way for the weakness of civil institutions and democracy.
Author. ALI ABBAS
PhD Candidate at the School of Politics and International Studies, Central China Normal University Wuhan. PR China. He earned his M.Phil. Degree in International Relations from National Defence University Islamabad, Pakistan. His Ph.D. research focuses on the Strategic triangular relationship between Pakistan-China and the USA in the 21st century. His research area of interest includes South Asian Studies, Extremism, and Terrorism, Foreign Policy of Great Powers. He writes in China Daily, Modern Diplomacy, Eurasia Review, and Always CCNU Magazine. Currently he is working as Editor of “Always CCNU” Magazine.