One thing you hear a lot about is how Pakistan makes much better progress under Army Rule/Dictatorship against Democracy. This is evident from the chart below.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iframe/chart.aspx?url=/pakistan/gdp-growth
Source: tradingeconomics.com
The last bump is the Musharraf Era (1999-2007), previously it was Ayub Khan’s era (1960s) that was termed as the golden growth period of Pakistan and in between was Zia ul Haq from (1977-1988).
The general assumption is that it is the army rule or dictatorship that drives the economy and generates better growth and politicians are incompetent and corrupt. The second part of this assumption (about the politicians) is absolutely spot on, however, the first part is fallacious. Let me explain why.
Pakistan is a huge country with some major challenges, the biggest being illiteracy, feudalism and consequently abject poverty. The feudal/landed class can and does co-erce and buy their way into the legislative assemblies. In a parliamentary democracy, the Ministers are chosen from this lot. It is in their self interest to perpetuate the status quo, spread of education/literacy and social and economic uplift of the masses will threaten their privileged positions.
The fallacy that dictatorship is better comes from the fact that whenever there is a dictatorship at least some if not all ministers are chosen from the technocrats. These professionals are not only much better qualified to deliver on the job but they are not in conflict with the national goals.
The need of the hour is for us to review and change the Parliamentary system of democracy to a Presidential System. It will be much easier to find one (relatively) honest person with the freedom to chose the right team from a population of 180mn+ people rather then from a few hundred of the landed class.
Instead of having national and provincial assemblies we need to strengthen our grass root democratic system through Local Governments. At the grass root level there is more connection with the masses and accountability. This will also create a new generation of political leadership that can graduate to a provincial level and ultimately to a national level.
A Presidential system will also allow for implementation of reforms as highlighted by me in http://owaisz.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/10-point-agenda-for-reforming-pakistan/
The question, however, remains. Who will bell the cat?
Posted on August 26, 2011
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