![](http://www.pildat.org/events/17-01-31/img/urduthumb2.jpg)
January 31; The year 2016 has seen Pakistan’s
Quality of Democracy slide by 4 percentage points from 2015. Instead of a steady
transition towards improvement, democracy scores in Pakistan, year after year
since 2013, show a somewhat tumultuous trend – while quality of democracy
was scored at its highest in 4 years at 54% in 2013; the scores slid 10 percentage
points in 2014 to 44%, regained a little to 50% in 2015 to have slipped again
to 46% at the end of year 2016.1
PILDAT’s annual assessment report on Quality
of Democracy in Pakistan has stated that ‘it was hoped that 2016 would
be the year where Pakistan moves forward towards a positive democratic consolidation
through crucially required reforms in key democratic institutions. Instead,
the year saw little, if any, improvement in fundamental functioning of key democratic
institution. This rendered these institutions largely ineffective in resolving
systemic issues behind concerns such as Panama leaks, elected Government’s
inability to exercise its constitutional writ on national security and foreign
policy domains, and it’s evident failure and perhaps even reluctance in
institutionalizing consultative decision-making process. What’s more,
the system of democratic governance, once again, failed to even raise amongst
its various institutions vital concerns plaguing the country’s journey
to peace, equitable growth and prosperity, let alone focus on resolving those
to improve the country’s democratic present and future’.
Amongst the problematic areas for Pakistan’s
democracy, an uninspiring performance by the country’s Parliament and
Provincial Assemblies continues. Especially the National Assembly continues
to be sidelined as a forum for debate, discussion and resolution of national
issues. Perhaps this is also because there is a huge gap between voters’
expectations of their elected representatives, which includes work that should
ideally be carried out by elected members of the Local Governments, and the
MNAs’ actual responsibilities of representation, oversight and legislation.
In addition, major reforms are required in strengthening
both the architecture and effective use of the powers of oversight of the Executive,
transparency and accessibility of the Legislatures and an in effective Parliamentary
budget processes.
With regards to performance of National and
Provincial Governments, a consistent lack of institutionalization in decision-making
on has continued to be a problem in 2016 as well. Consider the Federal Cabinet,
which is supposed to meet at least 52 times in a year, but could only manage
to meet 6 times during 2016.
With regards to performance of the Judiciary,
PILDAT’s assessment stated that ‘with regards to cases of a
civil nature, there is a need to introduce various kinds of alternative dispute
resolutions methods. On the other hand, with regards to criminal cases, there
is a need to reform the criminal justice system, along with improving the investigation
and prosecution services. However, 2016 has passed without institution
of major reforms in the legal process despite the clock ticking on expiry of
the 21st Constitutional Amendment’.
On independence of media, PILDAT’s assessment
has noted that revenue from advertisements is the primary monetary source for
all forms of media outlets in Pakistan leading these providers of advertisements
to have a huge influence on those outlets.
With regards to Local Governments, it was observed
that it is a positive development that they have been instituted across the
country in 2016, except for in FATA, GB and AJK. However, it needs to be seen
whether the powers guaranteed by Article 140-A of the Constitution have been
devolved to the third tier as was the intent of the Constitution. This only
seems to be the case in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whereas the Local Government structures
in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Cantonment Boards and ICT remain a cause of concern
with regards to their autonomy and devolution of powers.
In civil-military relations and democratic oversight
of the security sector, 2016 saw the civil-military imbalance deepen further
as the Military leadership seemed to be taking the leading role on matters of
national security and certain domains of our foreign policy, with the elected
Government appearing to act as an auxiliary. However, in an important development
and milestone in Pakistan’s democratic journey, a change in Military command
was witnessed at the end of November 2016, even though rumours continued to
support the contrary.
Internal Democracy of Political Parties continued
to be a liability for the quality of Pakistan’s democracy during 2016
as well. Even though there were some positive developments to report, such as
the intra-party elections of the PML-N, which were undertaken as more of a mechanized
ritual, and the establishment of the MQM as an indigenous party, rather than
being a satellite run from London, no substantial improvement was noticed. In
fact, a major set back was observed particularly for the PTI, which was supposed
to be a role model for other political parties when it came to internal democracy.
The party’s cancellation of intra-party elections, allegedly because of
its agitation campaign was a significant setback with regards to internal democracy
of political parties in Pakistan. Therefore, as noted before, the major political
parties with significant electoral success, such as the PTI, PML-N and PPP continued
to be lengthened shadows of their leaders, with little or no institutionalized
decision-making in place within the parties on important policy matters.
On performance of the unelected executive/bureaucracy,
it was noted that especially with regards to the civil service, including the
police, that these crucial arms of functioning of State do not have the same
independence that is observed in the case of the Military. Unfortunately no
reforms were instituted in this regard during 2016.
![](http://www.pildat.org/events/17-01-31/img/tab1.jpg)
The complete report titled Assessment of the
Quality of Democracy in Pakistan, 2016 may be accessed at:
http://www.pildat.org/Publications/publication/Democracy&LegStr
/AssessmentoftheQualityofDemocracyinPakistan_2016.pdf
The Urdu translation of the Executive Summary
of the Report may be translated at:
http://www.pildat.org/Publications/publication/Democracy&LegStr
/AssessmentoftheQualityofDemocracyinPakistan_2016_urdu.pdf
References:
1. PILDAT’s Assessment of the
Quality of Democracy in Pakistan, 2016 is a report
is based on data analysis and scores compiled on the eleven parameters of the
Pakistan-Specific Framework, an indigenously developed framework by PILDAT to
assess the quality of democracy. These parameters comprise of Performance of
Parliament and Provincial Legislatures; Performance of National and Provincial
Governments; Performance of the Unelected Executive; Performance of the Judiciary
and Access to Justice; Performance of the Media; Institution of Local Governments;
Constitutional Framework; Democratic Oversight of the Security Sector and Rule
of Law; Electoral Process and Management; Performance of Political Parties vis-à-vis
Democracy Within as well as Outside and performance of the Civil Society. |