Pak ruling elite behind failure of democracy in the country

Islamabad, Jan 23 (ANI): The reluctance of Pakistan's ruling elite to let the parliamentary system of government work and grow according to the Westminister model is considered by political analysts as one of the dominant causes for the failure of democracy in the country, according to a leading Islamabad based daily.

The Pakistanis, who had tied hopes with the Pakistan Peoples Party to reverse the process of authoritarian growth out of a corrupted Westminister Doctrine, feel betrayed, The Nation said.

It is so because the leadership has installed a mechanism, which is an absolute distortion of the democratic tradition. In fact the pretension of parliamentary supremacy is nothing but a mockery of the idea.

All the people have seen so far is one man, the president, with limited constituency, governing the state while the Prime Minister, as leader of Parliament and therefore representing the national constituency appears sidelined.

The president exercises the executive power, which according to intent of the constitution rests with Prime Minister. This indeed is a flagrant violation of the intent of constitution as well as will of the people.

In their more than sixty years of history as independent nation, Pakistanis have witnessed time and again, that shift of executive power from prime minister to president has eventually led to the rise of dictatorship, The Nation said.

The PPP leadership has disappointed its supporters and sympathisers by placing real authority in the hands of president and by reducing the prime minister to the status of his henchman.

Perhaps the greatest harm to the functioning of parliamentary democracy has been done by the induction of section 58-2(b) in the constitution. It was intended to strengthen a dictatorial rule, and was hoped by the citizenry that with the return of political government the much-hated clause will go, the paper said.

Its founders conceived the idea of Pakistan as a country with parliamentary system of government, because they had experience of it, though limited, through constitutional reforms introduced by the British from time to time. (ANI)