Democracy a farce

Politics in Pakistan is always full of surprise, shock may be not! Those who follow the politics in Pakistan are aware of a dubious fact – the throne of Pakistan is jinxed as no PM in the history of the Islamic nation has completed a full tenure. Pakistan, which was created in 1947 out of India after a dread partition that witnessed the largest ever migration on both sides; has seen the change of powers more often than any other so-called democracy. The jinx for Pakistan began just four years after its formation with the assassination of the first-ever elected PM of the country. Then the continuous power hustle between The Muslim League and other leaders led to the change of four prime ministers in just the span of 6 years from 1951-to 56. This apart, Pakistan saw two undemocratic military rules from 1958 to 1973 and then in 1977 following the assassination of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In addition to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto two other prime ministers have been assassinated and hence were unable to complete their tenure. This includes the first PM Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated four years and two months after the service. Bhutto’s daughter and the first female PM of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was also assassinated merely after 20 months of assuming control. Pakistan has seen three military rules so far. First was when Mohammed Ayub Khan, an Army General forced Iskander Mirza to step down and became the President Gen Zia ul Haq ruled as the army chief and later Pervez Musharraf a retired four-star general who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of the federal government in 1999.

However, this time the actions taken by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan in last few days have shattered all previous norms and records. Ever since the no-confidence motion was moved, Prime Minister Imran Khan was maintaining to ‘fight till the last ball’; he chose to instead take a ‘flight’ when it became obvious that he had lost majority in the National Assembly. However, the manner in which this was done has created a constitutional crisis that the Supreme Court (SC) felt compelled to take suo motu notice of. Facing the embarrassment of being voted out, Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken an unprecedented step; advising the president for dissolution of the National Assembly and calling for early elections. The deputy speaker declared the no-confidence motion illegal on the basis of what he described as a “foreign conspiracy”, thereby scuttling the much-anticipated vote that would decide whether Imran Khan remained in office or not.

Prime Minister Imran Khan in order to give life to his tenure has complicated the current political crisis. This crisis is neither the first one nor the last.  Pakistan continues to be governed by its military, mostly directly, and at times indirectly; and their involvement and arm twisting the ruling parties only makes democracy a farce.

It was evident that with the crumbling of the ruling coalition and defeat looming, Imran Kahn had lost the confidence of the house and that this was a last-ditch attempt to escape his imminent ouster.