By Shakeel Ahmad Ramay
Abraham Lincoln once defined liberal democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. The proponents of liberal democracy dubbed these words thesoul of democracy. They initiated to brand liberal democracy as ultimate solution to govern, which is not true. In reality, it is emerging as one of the weakest systems of governance, which has many imbedded flaws.
First, it thrives on differences not consensus.It starts by dividing nation into political groups. Political groups come up with fancy slogans to attract followers. Simultaneously, they put all efforts to undermine political opponents, which is required to strengthen their support base. It leads to division in society, which ends up withcultformation and blind following. The cult-based following consider their immune to mistakes or human weaknesses. Thus, they do not allow anyone to differ from their leadership. Ultimate, victim of this division is society as leaders use the division to rule the people and exploit the system in his favor.
Second,democracy is game of throne, which is run by money. People with money can buy anything, including opinion or ideology. The role of money is so strong that ordinary people cannot think to be part of game, except to vote. They are only used as pawn to secure the interests of the king.
The role of money and divisionhave challenged the basic definition of democracy and change people with power. First, the role of money is making sure that people’s role is limited. It is not only happening inSouthern countries, but also in most developed and established democracies. Harvard political review highlighted that money is playing a prominent role in deciding the election outcome. As, candidates with better financing and spending had higher percentage of win. For example, during election cycle of 2020 in USA,political parties, donors and candidates spent more than US $ 14.4 billion. Presidential candidates alone spent US$ 6.6 billion.
Second, division fueled by political grouping leads to social divide and conflicts, which can lead to anarchy and genocide. For example, in USA, PEW highlighted that partisanship beats all other indicators of conflict, and more than 90% people have conflicts between the range of very strong to not strong category. The social divide is so sharp that even people decide their marriages on the basis of political ideology. Institute of Family Studies highlighted that space for politically mixed marriages is declining (21% politically mixed marriages). The divide is even deeper among the followers of democrats and republicans (4% politically mixed marriages). Besides, Michael Mann’s book Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing can help us to further understand the phenomena of division and its impact on society.
Third, it gives rise to in-equality. As, the powerful ruling elitecaptures the resources and exploit it for their own interests. They have devised innovative tools like liberal economic model, which helps them to justify their exploitation and in-equality. Being followers of liberal economic model, they promote private sector and undermine state-owned business. It helps them to extract personal benefit and oblige cronies and financiers. It also helps them to get rid of responsibility of public services like education and health. If someone try to questions the tactics of ruling elite or raise the voice against exploitation, they declare him/her anti-state.
Fourth, policy shift is another feather in the cap of liberal democracy. We have seen many times that new government comes up with new plans and policies and slash policies of previous governments. This policy shift dearly cost country and people.
Unfortunately, we can find all these ills in Pakistani democracy. Political parties have successfully divided nation. They have built their cults and sane voices have been snubbed. People are not allowedto differ from the policies of parties. If someone commit a mistake to differ then he will have to face the wrath of followers of that political parties. Although, they advocate for tolerance and acceptance of difference of opinion, but in reality, they will unleash a hell on you if you differ from them. In this way, political parties have effectively killed space for dialogue and difference of opinion. They have turned nations intohuman herd at name at the name of self-assumed righteousness.
Second, role of money has been strengthened with the passage of time. Private business mafias have captured the whole system. In recent years, emergence of real estate mafia has changed the whole dynamics. They are spending money on all political parties and enjoying the complete dominance over the governance system. Big groups of real estate are new holy cows, and nobody can dare to touch them. The classic example is ongoing drama between PTI and government over the Al-Qadar Trust. Although, they are tearing apart each other, but they have not have the courage to spell the name of real beneficiary. They are only contended by using terminology of property tycoon.
In the nutshell, the liberal democracy has turned Pakistan into home of multiple problems. If people want to come out of these problems, then they will have to break trap of division. For that purpose, there is need of a new system. Asystem, which can help to put Pakistan on the path of unity and discipline.There is no room for failure, because if peoplefail to introduce new system, political elite (does not matter who is in power) will continue to exploit people. It will be a difficult task, as political elite has master the art of divide and rule.
