fatman17
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Why do nations fail? Answer: leaders of failing nations have three characteristics – greed, selfishness and ignorance of history (the original work in this field was done by Daron Acemoglu of MIT and James Robinson of Harvard in their masterpiece ‘Why nations fail’).
Over the past 44 years, we have elected lawmakers in ten different elections – 1970, 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002, 2008 and 2013. Over the past 44 years, there hasn’t been a law that hasn’t been broken by the very people who made them. Over the past 44 years, there hasn’t been a law that hasn’t been broken by the very people whose job it is to implement the law. Over the past 44 years, the State of Pakistan has been treated as a personal estate by the very people we elected. Over the past 44 years, the servants of the state have become personal servants of the elected.
Conclusion: Pakistan’s real problem has been Pakistan’s leadership.
What are the three things wrong with us? One: men and women are getting rich through corruption not by hard work. Two: money is flowing towards those who deal in favours not in goods. Three: our National Assembly has been making laws to protect predators not the preyed (original work in this field was done by Ayn Rand, the Russian-American philosopher and playwright).
And why are we corrupt? Answer: Pakistan is corrupt “precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organised society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who posses it….. The losers have been the Pakistani people, as they only too well understand.”
Good governance is now a science. All that is required is the right policy mix. Question: What is required to right the wrongs of the past 67 years? Answer: Three things: we need to alter our spending priorities; we need to invest in education and health; we need to invest in justice.
Next question: Are our leaders really incapable of delivering prosperity? Answer: Our leaders are fully aware of the ‘right policy mix’ but they have deliberately organised every institution within the state and society to benefit the elite – and only the elite.
What’s next? Our options:
Option 1: The PML-N to complete its term.
Option 2: Mid-term election. In the current National Assembly, the PML-N has 190 seats, the PPP has 46 seats and the PTI 34. If the PML-N is somehow forced into holding mid-term elections the probability is that one of the three political parties would end up controlling the prime minister’s office – PML-N, PTI or PPP. In the absence of deep rooted electoral reforms, a government resulting from mid-term elections would not be much different from what Pakistan has seen before.
Option 3: Martial law. For the record, Pakistanis have always celebrated the imposition of martial laws. Within the army, there seems to be a general consensus that the political class is not taking Pakistan in the right direction. Only one question: Are military officers trained in the science of governance?
Option 4: A technocratic setup. Pakistan has problems but our elected decision makers have priorities other than solving those problems. In a technocracy, decision making revolves around ‘data-oriented problem-solving’. In a technocracy, decision making is undertaken by unelected individuals on the basis of “information derived from methodology rather than opinion”.
Conclusion: What we need is democracy but what we need even before that is fundamental changes in the rules of the political game.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
Over the past 44 years, we have elected lawmakers in ten different elections – 1970, 1977, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002, 2008 and 2013. Over the past 44 years, there hasn’t been a law that hasn’t been broken by the very people who made them. Over the past 44 years, there hasn’t been a law that hasn’t been broken by the very people whose job it is to implement the law. Over the past 44 years, the State of Pakistan has been treated as a personal estate by the very people we elected. Over the past 44 years, the servants of the state have become personal servants of the elected.
Conclusion: Pakistan’s real problem has been Pakistan’s leadership.
What are the three things wrong with us? One: men and women are getting rich through corruption not by hard work. Two: money is flowing towards those who deal in favours not in goods. Three: our National Assembly has been making laws to protect predators not the preyed (original work in this field was done by Ayn Rand, the Russian-American philosopher and playwright).
And why are we corrupt? Answer: Pakistan is corrupt “precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organised society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who posses it….. The losers have been the Pakistani people, as they only too well understand.”
Good governance is now a science. All that is required is the right policy mix. Question: What is required to right the wrongs of the past 67 years? Answer: Three things: we need to alter our spending priorities; we need to invest in education and health; we need to invest in justice.
Next question: Are our leaders really incapable of delivering prosperity? Answer: Our leaders are fully aware of the ‘right policy mix’ but they have deliberately organised every institution within the state and society to benefit the elite – and only the elite.
What’s next? Our options:
Option 1: The PML-N to complete its term.
Option 2: Mid-term election. In the current National Assembly, the PML-N has 190 seats, the PPP has 46 seats and the PTI 34. If the PML-N is somehow forced into holding mid-term elections the probability is that one of the three political parties would end up controlling the prime minister’s office – PML-N, PTI or PPP. In the absence of deep rooted electoral reforms, a government resulting from mid-term elections would not be much different from what Pakistan has seen before.
Option 3: Martial law. For the record, Pakistanis have always celebrated the imposition of martial laws. Within the army, there seems to be a general consensus that the political class is not taking Pakistan in the right direction. Only one question: Are military officers trained in the science of governance?
Option 4: A technocratic setup. Pakistan has problems but our elected decision makers have priorities other than solving those problems. In a technocracy, decision making revolves around ‘data-oriented problem-solving’. In a technocracy, decision making is undertaken by unelected individuals on the basis of “information derived from methodology rather than opinion”.
Conclusion: What we need is democracy but what we need even before that is fundamental changes in the rules of the political game.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
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