Love for unreformed democracy

As the debate over a change of guard in Islamabad intensifies so does the government's defiance of the law because, being an 'elected' government, it refuses accountability to anyone, including the Supreme Court. That's why, while hearing the case challenging Kamran Lashari's appointment, the Chief Justice told the Secretary, Establishment, "You people have no respect for the court, and always find ways to undermine its orders".
Rumours about a plot to kill the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court make the scenario worse. Earlier, the government had to cancel within a day the appointment of Adnan Khawja as OGDC's Managing Director after the SC took suo motu notice thereof; it was just one of the many appointments faulted by the SC because the appointees had questionable track records. But the regime refused to learn the lesson. What the analysts wonder is why the regime did so repeatedly.
Does the regime wants to be ousted to project itself as the 'victim' in order to regain people's sympathy, which it knows it no longer enjoys courtesy its undeniably bad governance? The fact is that the regime's nepotism, corruption, and pedestrian responses to fiscal and administrative challenges wiped out all chances of regaining public support. Reviving that support is a far cry no matter how even Richard Holbrooke tries.
But why blame Holbrooke; the great columnist Irfan Hussain advises Pakistanis that "putting up with him [Asif Zardari] for the rest of his term might seem a bitter pill to swallow, but nobody said attaining a working democracy was easy". Taking this pill, ie condoning bad governance, won't 'attain' democracy, but will certainly damage Pakistan beyond repair.
Democracy's defenders should know that the scenario has changed radically, whichever democracy you look at. In the current recession, democracies are suffering the most. Reason: gullible lawmakers became front men of the corrupt in their corporate sectors, and legislated recklessly to 'liberalise' and 'de-regulate' markets by undermining the interests of the consumers (the electorate).
Saner analysts in the Western media now admit that in the US - the democracy they earlier told everyone to emulate - Republicans as well as Democrats act as front men of big US (financial and armament) businesses. The view now is that a system that elevated warmongers like Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bush Senior and Bush Junior to the presidency needs an overhaul.
In Pakistan, democracy serves the landlords; this a lot (clueless about governance) enjoys a great advantage - a vast captive electorate consisting of its farmers who blindly vote for it. That's why, even though democratic regimes did virtually nothing right during their reigns to justify re-election of the same landlords (and over time their siblings) to the parliament, they were re-elected.
No democratic regime was overthrown because the army sought its turn to rule Pakistan. Intoxicated by the belief that actions of an elected regime can't be questioned (typical landlord psyche), each regime mismanaged the affairs of the state to a point where its overthrow appeared justified. Remember, the conditions prevailing prior to the 'great' elections of 1970 and 1977?
Undeniably, military dictatorships are the least acceptable form of governance. But in Pakistan, in economic terms, governance was at its best under General Ayub. What corrupted that regime was inclusion of self-seeking politicians therein on the advice of democracy lovers - a fate that General Musharraf (Retd) too eventually suffered, and is eager to suffer yet again.
Politicians learnt nothing from history. Being elected is only an event in time; staying in power calls for quality governance, which isn't the forte of the 1940s-style anti-British slogan mongers. Governance implies vision, administrative skills, organising abilities, imposing and practising tough disciplines for accountability, the courage to accept failures, and making swift amends therefor. But the incumbent regime wants the condition of minimum educational qualifications for parliamentary hopefuls also to be annulled via the 18th Amendment.
We see none of these attributes in the incumbent regime but the PM can't stand technocrats - the guys who strive for efficient and equitable governance. Although he stands on the precipice, he can't see that the combined 'political genius' of the PPP and the 'friendly' PML-N failed miserably in resolving Pakistan's problems; they only escalated those problems.
Just one example thereof is the continuing rise in electricity tariff. The 'all-knowing' politicians are using this route to plugging the supply gap although it implies robbing the honest consumer while 'power thieves' go scot-free. None of these thieves (many landlords) was caught. What the power suppliers now collect as electricity bills is "bhatta". On the other hand, 72 universities may close because the state can't pay their expenses.
The PPP will pay for what it did during its current stint - hopefully, not via its demise. So will the 'friendly' PML-N, which seemed happy ruling Punjab while things went from bad to worse everywhere, but wanted us to believe that it was helping democracy to survive; by the look of things (shortage of almost every good, blatant cartelization, and broad daylight target killings), that's one thing that won't happen.
The ANP sealed its fate by blindly siding with the PPP instead of holding it back from indulging in bad governance. The MQM appears clever-by-half by remaining a coalition partner, while the PML-N finally appears ready to quit the coalition. Not leaving the coalition will hurt the MQM irrespective of its calls for a bloody revolution which, in any case, isn't a prudent solution; MQM clearly doesn't know the cost of such revolutions.
As if the chaos created by Pakistan's current brand of democracy isn't enough, General Musharraf (Retd) - the most controversial figure - wants to enter the fray to add to the chaos we now have courtesy politicians' concerted efforts to use democracy as the vehicle for serving their interests.
The outcome is blatant defiance of the law and near bankruptcy in moral, social, fiscal and administrative terms. With this profile of the sitting parliament, will an in-house change really improve the quality of governance? In this backdrop, Richard Holbrooke's assurance that the US stands by Pakistan's 'democratic' regime should open the eyes of every Pakistani.
The post-World War II America cares only about US interests, no matter who serves them. Defending those responsible for bad governance offers a glimpse of US designs on Pakistan; add to that Holbrooke's warning that the US won't accept slackness by Pak Army in the US war-on-terror.