Disenchantment with democracy

Asif Haroon Raja

The whole country has been ravaged by devastating floods. Over 2000 have died, 875,562 houses damaged, fertile lands and orchards destroyed, 14 million people got affected as reported by UN and estimated economic loss range between Rupees 350 to 500 billion. World Food Program has estimated loss of almost 80% food stock. Roads and bridges in Swat, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir have been badly damaged making relief efforts all the more problematic. 3.5 million children are at risk of waterborne diseases. The disaster is much bigger than Tsunami in Indian Ocean in 2004, 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir, and Haitian earthquake in 2010.

Response to this biggest natural calamity has been slow and lacklustre. But for prompt and efficient response from the Army and sister services, together with availability of US helicopters and voluntary services rendered by Islamic NGOs, plight of marooned people would have been awful. Jayalas are more worried about how to hide the Birmingham incident in which a PPP activist threw his shoes on him than the flood affectees fighting battle of life and death. They are intimidating and gagging some TV channels for displaying the episode, which had been already revealed by foreign media. Having no means to challenge foreign media, Jayalas spurred by their leaders gave vent to their anger on Geo TV and Jang group in Karachi while the Sindh government blocked Geo channel. They are vainly trying to protect the dented image of Zardari who has become a source of embarrassment for Pakistanis.

Government has so far been unable to mobilise international and national assistance to cope with the unprecedented disaster because of lack of credibility of our rulers. Scale and intensity of floods is beyond imagination and extent of death and destruction wreaked by floods has not even been ascertained. PM Gilani has wrung his hands helplessly saying that the government doesn’t have the capacity to meet the catastrophe.  

How can the government meet the unforeseen challenge when its expenses are $ 700 billion more than income generated through taxes? Likewise imports far outweigh exports. Rs. 1.2 million is spent on PM daily while daily expenditure of presidency is Rs. one million. Over one billion is earmarked for their foreign jaunts. Foreign debt has crossed $ 50 billion. Corruption in the last two years has eaten up Rs. 300 billion. Several corruption mega scandals have surfaced involving billions. While the plight of deprived class has become miserable because of unemployment, poverty, high inflation and extraordinary high prices of all utilities and daily commodity items, there is no change in the extravagant lifestyle of the elites and rulers.

PPP leaders are in the habit of procrastination and putting off decisions either wilfully or out of sheer lethargy. The only time they promptly made an announcement unilaterally was on Kalabagh Dam (KBD), saying that the project had been shelved for good and the subject closed. Today even PM Gilani is saying that had KBD been built, people would not have suffered such colossal devastation in ongoing floods. Instead of working on hydel power capacity, Water & Power Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf diverted his whole energy in procuring controversial rental power projects (RPP) since he had been promised heavy kickbacks. Many are convinced that excessive load shedding is being purposely done to force the public to ask for quick relief through highly expensive RPP, which in the long run would skyrocket power rates. The RPPs if installed would shift the keys into the hands of foreign powers and make Pakistan totally dependent for energy on them.

This gory plot monopolising energy resources in Pakistan has been worked out by Pakistan’s adversaries in combination with Indian scheme of building large number of dams on all three rivers flowing into Pakistan. ANP leadership that has been defying construction of KBD on the plea that Nowshera would get drowned got cornered when the city actually got submerged in flood water and the whole province suffered massively. When the experts pointed out that devastations occurred could have been considerably minimised in case KBD was built, they retorted that destruction would then have been complete. Sindh nationalist parties oppose KBD on the pretext that requisite quantity of Indus water would not flow into the sea which in turn would affect Palla fish in River Sindh. Absence of dams renders agriculture lands in Sindh terribly short of water during summer and winter. During monsoon or floods, lands get inundated. Water has become so scarce that provinces have begun to fight over it, each demanding bigger share. Such are the ways of cheats and liars.

PPP stalwarts connect fate of democracy with Zardari arguing that any attempt to oust him would fatally undermine democracy. They never tire of projecting huge sacrifices rendered by PPP in restoring democracy. They turn a deaf ear to loud shouts that so-called democracy has been thoroughly tarnished within a span of two years due to gross incompetence, mis-governance and unbridled corruption beating all previous records. They still remain under the illusion that democracy under PPP rule is shining. They do not say as to why every military or civil ruler bashed PPP leaders and Jayalas and as to why all the four tenures of PPP starting from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were mired in massive corruption scandals, ineptness, poor governance and despotism. While they hide the sins of the top leadership under the excuse of political victimisation, they shirk defending their cases in law courts since they know their crimes would be found out. They are quite happy with NRO type pardon and protection for they not only want to safeguard ill-gotten health but also want to indulge in further loot without any fear of accountability.

It is because of fear of accountability that the rulers have defanged NAB and are once again making all out efforts to tame the higher judiciary. PCO judges suit their chemistry. They have managed to create divisions between lawyers, which acted as the shield for superior judiciary. Law Minister Babar Awan has been doling out cash to various Bar Councils to win them over and thus get the next President of Bar Council of their choice. Pro-western and pro-Indian human rights activist Asma Jahangir, known for her fiery tongue has been tipped for the post so that she could be pitched against chief justice Iftikhar.

The slogan of making the parliament supreme has busted after finding that large number of parliamentarians are fake degree holders. Out of 293 legislators scrutinised, 47 are fake degree holders. 13 have been disqualified, six have resigned. 65 more cases are likely to fall in the category of fakers. They have cheated the nation and have delivered a blow to democracy but the ruling class has the cheek to say that scrutiny of fake degrees and dismissal of law makers was a plot to destabilise parliament and democracy. Law Minister, Education Minister, Election Commission, parliamentarians and senators have ganged up to protect the culprits and are resorting to tricks to avoid possibility of mid-term elections, which they know will seal their fate.  

Irrespective of their utter incompetence to govern, and their corrupt and immoral practices, they cling to power like an octopus and shamefacedly say that they will not abdicate a day before completing five-year tenure. They are rather looking forward to return to power again in 2013 since they are past masters in duping gullible public through catchy slogans and false promises. Bilawal Zardari Bhutto is being groomed to keep the reins of power confined to Bhutto dynasty.

The rulers keep drumming virtues of democracy and making false promises to better the lives of the poor. In practice they are shredding norms of democracy and are pursuing anti-people policies. It is most unfortunate that having been repeatedly betrayed the people again elect same stock of crooks. Even the ones sacked on account of holding fake graduate degrees have been re-elected. This time however, the disenchantment with democracy is deep-rooted.