IN over 70 years of Pakistan’s existence, our nation has been

embroiled politically due to the ill-advised rabble-rousing tempest

of Westminsterian democracy. Ill-chosen by the ruling
establishment of the time and their obsession with everything
British, and cunningly sustained to date as it diligently serves the
well-ingrained vested interests of the rulers more than the ruled, it
continues to inflict insult on the creativity, intellect and drive of the
people with criminal disregard for the temporally pervasive crisis
in governance, all in the name of the much-revered parliamentary
system adopted from Westminster.

The Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, though it delivers

effectively in England and is fervently admired in Pakistan, is intrinsically ill-
suited to the prevailing realities of this land, its people and their needs.
Instead, it perniciously and effectively serves political mafias, power brokers
and feudal cliques — only to maintain their stranglehold on power without
interruption. By no account does the failure of parliamentary democracy
justify the military’s historical intrusions and violations, but a weak and
unstable system invites all kinds of interference and does not really enjoy the
honourable sanctum that its promoters and patrons so intuitively claim when
facing critique and censure.

Times have changed, and not just for the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Even the
new generation of landed and mercantile class admit that Pakistan’s political
system is not only rotten, but delivers poorly on governance. Yet most political
leaders, their apologists and many intellectuals remain suspiciously averse to
the idea of a debate on the presidential system and want to shoot it down even
before giving it a fair trial. So much for being ‘champions of democracy’.

It is vital to initiate a national debate on the form of

government that best suits Pakistan.
The future of Pakistan should be above partisan politics. It is vital to initiate a
national debate on the form of government that best suits Pakistan, and this
must take precedence over political point-scoring and regular mudslinging
matches that dominate the prime-time talk shows that define the priorities of
the political elite. Some forces will try to get this debate off track and bogged
down in partisanship. Nothing is more important than our quest for a stable
representative system that delivers democracy and good governance right
down to the grass roots. Pakistan’s poor system of government will always
remain an obstacle in its advancement towards good governance. It is our
collective obligation to seriously scrutinise our system’s essential weaknesses
and correct them while we can.