Opinion: Pakistan must become an authoritarian state to progress

[S.Y.A]

no need for blanket authoritarianism, we need:
1. Presidential system(with a lot of vetting, a guardian council, but containing experts form all walks of life, with the authority to just vet the presidential nominees and nothing else, and the president and the cabinet must not belong to a political party).
2. Political parties can compete for parliament(again after extreme vetting, maybe even after qualifying tests on policy making and administration), and even then there would be proportional representation.
3. same thing for provincial govt, governor chosen like the president, parliament chosen like that in the centre.
4. devolution of powers to City/Local bodies, weakening of provincial govt, strengthening of city/local govts. The provincial govt can provide oversight, and will be responsible for anti-corruption actions in cities, also for inter city coordination (resource/utility sharing, transport network etc.), fed govt can step in if the provincial govt acts in a biased maner. the fed govt, similarly, will check up on corruption in provinces, regulate inter province issues etc. and will be responsible for financial policies, foreign policy, industrial policy, defence.
5. Referendum for any and all laws to be passed, any and all amendments to be made. if the said law/amendment affects a group of people, then only that group will be eligible to vote in it (will increase public representation, and accountability).
6. Also, end one person, one vote system. only those with sound mind and education(at least intermediate) should be eligible for voting.
7. Accountability for judges, politicians, military, civil service etc to be handled by the civilian govt.
8. end feudal system, redistribute land.
9. end spreading of cities, encourage building of apartment complexes (take help from singapore for city planning), build new smart cities.
10. city govt to be responsible for attracting investment by industries (again, modalities to be set by the fed govt), police, fire deptt, infrastructure etc.
11. no need fro new provinces, if city govts are powerful, and the provincial govt is weak.

oh also, incentivize local production, made in pakistan initiatives, give tax holidays (gst, fed, taxes and duties on utilities, duty and taxes on import of raw materials) for at least 2 decades (duty and taxes on raw materials that cant be made in Pakistan to be extended indefinitely).

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

I posted this in the Musharraf thread but I'm gonna post it here too



Pakistan needs to be ruled by the military and it has always been better this way. Military knows how to run this country with an iron fist and that is when Pakistan as a nation will progress.

Democracy only works in countries where your population is intelligent enough to make sensible decisions. If your awaam is foolish and easily manipulated, democracy is a like a bomb waiting to go off. Putting decisions in the hands of your foolish awaam will ruin your nation and criminals will loot a weak democracy and corrupt it to the core. Politicians are so busy trying to gain power for themselves that they will make up fake scandals to create opposition. These criminal politicians will do everything they can to prevent, block, and slow down the gov't from implementing obvious and basic reforms that will help the nation. Democracy in Pakistan is a curse that will hold this nation back from achieving its full potential. China would never have become China if it was a democracy.

Military should take full power of every aspect of the state of Pakistan and root out all these corrupt criminals and mafia with an iron fist.

Shoot everyone in the bhutto, sharif and zardari family.

Every transaction greater than 500Rs requires CNIC, or NTN. Every business need to register and get a proper license.

Karachi under federal rule. Hyderabad new capital of Sindh.

Hazara province.

South Punjab province. Create a new city adjacent to Multan that will act as the capital.

Spend 5% of GDP on health. Spend 5% of GDP on education.

New Pakistan requires a new constitution.

Pakistan is now a one party authoritarian state, with the government having total control.

Proceed to liquidate the old order, wipe out the political elite and acquire all their lands and buisnesses.

Televised hangings and amputations of criminals who laundered billions of rupees from the international exchequer on PTV and all the world to see.

Privatize steel mill

MRAP for soldiers on Durand line

Media ethics will be strictly enforced any journalist who is a repeat offender will get his license revoked and will do 5 years in prison

Tough action against international NGO's stepping outside their mandate

High taxes on property above a certain value

Decrease redtape for setting up business

A purge in judiciary against Iftikhar elements

Abolish feudalism

Capital Punishment for corrupt politicians and high level officials

Increase our lobbying in the Gulf, America and the EU

It probably does but the problem is that no power on earth can subdue the viciousness and indifference of the Pakistani public.

 

[S.Y.A]

and of curse ruthless across the board accountability regime. complete overhauling of police, fia, ib, civil service and judiciary.

It probably does but the problem is that no power on earth can subdue the viciousness and indifference of the Pakistani public.

can be easily done, beat the crap out of them, every time they come out. no one dares to go against private industry owners, and landlords, yet unions in govt controlled departments are out of control

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

and of curse ruthless across the board accountability regime. complete overhauling of police, fia, ib, civil service and judiciary.


can be easily done, beat the crap out of them, every time they come out. no one dares to go against private industry owners, and landlords, yet unions in govt controlled departments are out of control

Problem is, no matter how much you beat Pakistanis, it doesn't seem to affect them.

 

[S.Y.A]

Problem is, no matter how much you beat Pakistanis, it doesn't seem to affect them.

bcz no one has done that regularly and consistently. it has always been an on and off show. do it day in and day out. then you will see the results.

and everyone deserves that beating, lawyers, judges, unionists, journalists, police, civil service, certain elements in the military, and general awam.

 

[Indos]

@Aspen

Since you like authoritarian state. So you need to be consistent bro. How about one party system like CCP in China but for Pakistan case it is an Islamist party like MB in Egypt who will rule Pakistan. Are you OK with that ?

 

[Syed1.]

@Aspen

Since you like authoritarian state. So you need to be consistent bro. How about one party system like CCP in China but for Pakistan case it is an Islamist party like MB in Egypt who will rule Pakistan. Are you OK with that ?

That is a nightmare scenario.

 

[Aspen]

no need for blanket authoritarianism, we need:
1. Presidential system(with a lot of vetting, a guardian council, but containing experts form all walks of life, with the authority to just vet the presidential nominees and nothing else, and the president and the cabinet must not belong to a political party).
2. Political parties can compete for parliament(again after extreme vetting, maybe even after qualifying tests on policy making and administration), and even then there would be proportional representation.
3. same thing for provincial govt, governor chosen like the president, parliament chosen like that in the centre.
4. devolution of powers to City/Local bodies, weakening of provincial govt, strengthening of city/local govts. The provincial govt can provide oversight, and will be responsible for anti-corruption actions in cities, also for inter city coordination (resource/utility sharing, transport network etc.), fed govt can step in if the provincial govt acts in a biased maner. the fed govt, similarly, will check up on corruption in provinces, regulate inter province issues etc. and will be responsible for financial policies, foreign policy, industrial policy, defence.
5. Referendum for any and all laws to be passed, any and all amendments to be made. if the said law/amendment affects a group of people, then only that group will be eligible to vote in it (will increase public representation, and accountability).
6. Also, end one person, one vote system. only those with sound mind and education(at least intermediate) should be eligible for voting.
7. Accountability for judges, politicians, military, civil service etc to be handled by the civilian govt.
8. end feudal system, redistribute land.
9. end spreading of cities, encourage building of apartment complexes (take help from singapore for city planning), build new smart cities.
10. city govt to be responsible for attracting investment by industries (again, modalities to be set by the fed govt), police, fire deptt, infrastructure etc.
11. no need fro new provinces, if city govts are powerful, and the provincial govt is weak.

oh also, incentivize local production, made in pakistan initiatives, give tax holidays (gst, fed, taxes and duties on utilities, duty and taxes on import of raw materials) for at least 2 decades (duty and taxes on raw materials that cant be made in Pakistan to be extended indefinitely).

I can get onboard with some of this

 

[Aspen]

and of curse ruthless across the board accountability regime. complete overhauling of police, fia, ib, civil service and judiciary.

This should have been done long time ago

 

[Aspen]

bcz no one has done that regularly and consistently. it has always been an on and off show. do it day in and day out. then you will see the results.

and everyone deserves that beating, lawyers, judges, unionists, journalists, police, civil service, certain elements in the military, and general awam.

Honestly an authoritarian leader with the power to upend Pakistani society from top down would do this nation a huge favor if they could reform even one of these sectors, let alone all of them.

@Aspen

Since you like authoritarian state. So you need to be consistent bro. How about one party system like CCP in China but for Pakistan case it is an Islamist party like MB in Egypt who will rule Pakistan. Are you OK with that ?

If Pakistan survived Zia, we can survive anyone else.

 

[FuturePAF]

Honestly an authoritarian leader with the power to upend Pakistani society from top down would do this nation a huge favor if they could reform even one of these sectors, let alone all of them.


If Pakistan survived Zia, we can survive anyone else.

We need security, sincere leadership, and a rapidly growing economy if we are to survive. The difference between East Asian cultures and our own is a social contract between the state and the people. We need only look at India to see what happened when an authoritarian for authoritarianism sake comes to power. the last 50 years of our history should be proof enough that we need to sustain a healthy and amicable social contract with all our people, similar to what is done in Germany or Japan.

If we can sustain a 7% on average growth for the next 30 years, we can become a $2 Trillion economy, as projected by the world bank. Considering how underproductive our industries and agriculture are, we need to find a way to attract the investment to modernize and utilize our labor force, and then this number will not look unrealistic.

A lot of the growth also comes from consumer demand and government spending on social services. Productive use of tax money should be key. If you have an all power authoritarian, its leads to bloated and inefficient public sector that underperforms. We need to incentivize small and medium enterprises. Study the German model and how after WW2, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer reformed Germany into the economic power house it remains today.

In 2018/2019, Even now German’s Mittlestand companies were seeing 11% growth. The Germans know a thing or two about authoritarianism, and after how to grow without it.

We have a golden opportunity with CPEC, to reform ourselves. Our companies should be going over their books and putting more money into modernizing as well as training their workers for the future. If Pakistan can make the reforms that could enable it to grow at a minimum of 7% it will attract the FDI from foreign investors looking to make some money during this global downturn. We don’t need to be the best, just better then the alternative investment options.

we should be careful not to go down the same road India is going down today, the socioeconomic burden that will condemn that nation to for a generation of not longer. Look at all the authoritarians in Latin America and how their economies have stagnated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1332523105546162176

 

[Indus Pakistan]

authoritarian

This works perfectly in societies that are homgenous or have a very strong core that sustains them. Pakistan has neither. It is a very divided country of many "societies" drawn along ethnic, sectarian and other lines. This can be seen in how most of Karachi votes [supposedly most educated city], Punjab votes, K-Pk votes and Balochistan votes. There is clear ethnic voting patterns. Guns and soldiers will not paper over these differances and divisions. If anything they could make the divisions stronger.

All this might not matter if Pakistani state had a very strong historical core that acted like a magnet and pulled everything together but it does not. Probably the closest thing it has to a core is the Potohar plaeaux and neighbouring districts [it is no accident that the capital sits right in middle of this region] which provided most of the manpower to the army. But this region is not large enough to have the sufficient pull to draw in a 200 million plus country. To be fair this region does have SOME pull and that is what keeps Pakistan sailing along. Or it would haven fallen apart decades ago.

For comparison pursposes consider Turkey. It's core region is the vast Anatolian region traditionally made up of small villages with Turkic majority. It was this region that provided the core to the Ottoman Empire and subsequently to the Turkish Republic. A authoritarian state took take root here and spread it's tentacles over adjacent Kurdish, Arab, Armenian, Greek ethnic populations.

This lesson was not missed on Kemal Ataturk. In the WW1 as Ottoman Armies began collapsing it was noted that most ethnic Arabs, Kurds both Muslim peoples rebelled. However the Turkic elements of the Ottoman Empire and army stood firm. In the desperate struggle against European invasion it was the poor Anatolian ethnic Turk farmer who provided the manpower to Ataturk's rejuvenated Turkish forces and defeated the Western invaders.

These realities gave Ataturk the ideas for a strong Turkic state with intense nationalism revolving around Turkic legends and history. The Turkish state was brutal, authoritarian and enjoyed almost total loyalty amongst Anatolian Turks.

You may also compare the erstrwhile USSR. Again that state claimed to be union but in fact was formed around a strong core region which was European Russia. The Russians were the backbone of that state. Another example is Prussia which formed the core region for the newly founded German federation. The authoritarian Prussian state was formed around the military. Germany subsequently became "Prussianized" and the deeply authoritarian reflex would go on to change the course of European history with two world wars. The German Army was effectively formed around Prussian military traditions and most officers were from Prussian Junker class [something like say Potohari Jat class] who came from wealthy landlowning familes.

However unlike wealthy in Pakistan boys were brought up in a very maritial culture often being sent to boarding schools which prized competitive sports and honour. Many of these boys would then join the German Army as officer cadets. Hitler fought his wars mostly with this cadre as many senior Wehrmact officers were of Prussian background.

They were brought up to fight and if needed die in the service of the German state. This tradition was also inheritated by Turkish Republic from the Jannsaries of Ottoman days. The pre 1945 Japan was also a authoritarian state with a army heavily influenced by Samurai traditions. It's interesting that after 1945 both German and Japan were "cleaned" by having their Prussian/Samurai traditions erased from their militaries to prevent rise of another authoritarian governments.

By contrast Pakistan has non of these factors. It is deeply divided, multi-ethnic state and only has the army to hold it together. But the Pakistan Army does not have a Prussian, Jannisary or Samurai like traditrion. Boys from middle class families join with siblings who try to become doctors or bankers. The families are more driven more by economic advantage then any deep sense of tradition.

Often one son will be a officer in the Pakistan army, another a businessman in New York, a daughter a doctor in New Jesey, a son in British university and a daughter married to a son of some politician in Pakistan. This creates horizontal linkages inside the differant vested power groups in Pakistan and abroad. A good example is Gen. Asim Bajwa.

So the army elite is effectively part of the ruling elite and you guys think it is going to carry out a purge or whatever. Not on yeer nelly. You can see how despite madam Maryam and co insulting the army leadership nothing has or will be done.

 

[Gangetic]

Agreed. Authoritarianism suits Pakistan a lot better than the current system.

 

[KaiserX]

no need for blanket authoritarianism, we need:
1. Presidential system(with a lot of vetting, a guardian council, but containing experts form all walks of life, with the authority to just vet the presidential nominees and nothing else, and the president and the cabinet must not belong to a political party).
2. Political parties can compete for parliament(again after extreme vetting, maybe even after qualifying tests on policy making and administration), and even then there would be proportional representation.
3. same thing for provincial govt, governor chosen like the president, parliament chosen like that in the centre.
4. devolution of powers to City/Local bodies, weakening of provincial govt, strengthening of city/local govts. The provincial govt can provide oversight, and will be responsible for anti-corruption actions in cities, also for inter city coordination (resource/utility sharing, transport network etc.), fed govt can step in if the provincial govt acts in a biased maner. the fed govt, similarly, will check up on corruption in provinces, regulate inter province issues etc. and will be responsible for financial policies, foreign policy, industrial policy, defence.
5. Referendum for any and all laws to be passed, any and all amendments to be made. if the said law/amendment affects a group of people, then only that group will be eligible to vote in it (will increase public representation, and accountability).
6. Also, end one person, one vote system. only those with sound mind and education(at least intermediate) should be eligible for voting.
7. Accountability for judges, politicians, military, civil service etc to be handled by the civilian govt.
8. end feudal system, redistribute land.
9. end spreading of cities, encourage building of apartment complexes (take help from singapore for city planning), build new smart cities.
10. city govt to be responsible for attracting investment by industries (again, modalities to be set by the fed govt), police, fire deptt, infrastructure etc.
11. no need fro new provinces, if city govts are powerful, and the provincial govt is weak.

oh also, incentivize local production, made in pakistan initiatives, give tax holidays (gst, fed, taxes and duties on utilities, duty and taxes on import of raw materials) for at least 2 decades (duty and taxes on raw materials that cant be made in Pakistan to be extended indefinitely).

Agreed, a presidential system suites Pakistan far more than the parliamentary crap. There should be elections held every 5 year at the federal/provincial level (similar to now) except that:

1. President should have full executive authority and be directly elected. Command in chief/Power to appoint govt/military officials and pass ordinances

2. Parliament should be elected with the first-past-post system, similar to Germany/Israel. In this systems the people only votes for the political party instead of a MNA/MP directly. Political parties have a predetermined list of their nominees in order based off of how much percentage of people vote for them...example:

PTI gets 50%, PPP gets 20%, PML-n-20 20%, Rest of parties gets 2% or less then in a 360 member assembly all the seats would be splits based off this percentage subtracting any party with less than 2% vote will not be counted (votes go to the largest parties split propritionally not counting those with 2>0)... this will prevent smaller extremist parties from holding nationalist interest hostage as done in Germany/Israel. This will also make sure that politicians hold national interest supreme over local interest since the electors have no motive to help a particular district.

3. The combination of direct elections for president and first past the post election for parliament will ensure that the president/parliamentary majority is always in the same hands.

4. Senators should be directly elected with a similar first past the post system every 6 years. No more smaller parties putting national interest hostage at the provincial level.

5. At a provincial level governors should also be elected directly and parliament should have a similar first past the post system.

Unfortunately in Pakistan we have had socialist, liberals, punjabi, sindhis, balochis, you name it hold nationalist interests hostage for their own self servicing interest.

 

[Aspen]

We need security, sincere leadership, and a rapidly growing economy if we are to survive. The difference between East Asian cultures and our own is a social contract between the state and the people. We need only look at India to see what happened when an authoritarian for authoritarianism sake comes to power. the last 50 years of our history should be proof enough that we need to sustain a healthy and amicable social contract with all our people, similar to what is done in Germany or Japan.

If we can sustain a 7% on average growth for the next 30 years, we can become a $2 Trillion economy, as projected by the world bank. Considering how underproductive our industries and agriculture are, we need to find a way to attract the investment to modernize and utilize our labor force, and then this number will not look unrealistic.

A lot of the growth also comes from consumer demand and government spending on social services. Productive use of tax money should be key. If you have an all power authoritarian, its leads to bloated and inefficient public sector that underperforms. We need to incentivize small and medium enterprises. Study the German model and how after WW2, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer reformed Germany into the economic power house it remains today.

In 2018/2019, Even now German’s Mittlestand companies were seeing 11% growth. The Germans know a thing or two about authoritarianism, and after how to grow without it.

We have a golden opportunity with CPEC, to reform ourselves. Our companies should be going over their books and putting more money into modernizing as well as training their workers for the future. If Pakistan can make the reforms that could enable it to grow at a minimum of 7% it will attract the FDI from foreign investors looking to make some money during this global downturn. We don’t need to be the best, just better then the alternative investment options.

we should be careful not to go down the same road India is going down today, the socioeconomic burden that will condemn that nation to for a generation of not longer. Look at all the authoritarians in Latin America and how their economies have stagnated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1332523105546162176

Authoritarian regimes are high risk, high reward. You could get somebody terrible like Zia or you could get a visionary figure like Musharraf who finally brought Pakistan into the 21st century with a leader we could be proud of. Civilian gov'ts will be mediocre at best. If you want somebody truly great, you will never get that leader under any mediocre civilian govt, you need an authoritarian regime like Musharraf who knew what he was doing and did not let anyone get in the way of progress.

You never achieve anything great without putting it all on the line. Pakistan could keep continuing this stupid parliamentary system but then never expect the kind of radical reforms and forward thinking vision that only an authoritarian regime could expedite and cut through all the red tape which is desperately needed for Pakistan to achieve greatness in the world.

A lot of people keep saying that Pakistan should be democratic but what they always forget is that Pakistan is only democratic today because of the modern reforms that only Musharraf could bring. None of the "democratic" governments before Musharraf were able to make the reforms necessary for Pakistan to really become a democracy as people know it today.

Ironic that most of Pakistan's democratic reforms always come under military governments because civil gov'ts can never pass anything.