Deal vs. Democracy

In the past few weeks where an alliance of political parties is working together to rid Pakistan of dictatorship, which infact now is taking it's last few breaths, a party solely lend a helping hand to the dying dictatorship. This conditional help also known as "deal" has significantly damaged the reputation of that political party. Now if we stop and think, the questions are, why did this democratically elected party found it necessary to go for a deal with a dictator? How can both PPP and Musharraf benefit from this deal? And is it in the interests of democracy and the nation?

First of all after the recent freedom of judiciary and the up rise in the thoughts of an average Pakistani it was a very good chance for the political parties to take leverage from this situation and put an end to dictatorship. Most of the parties did try and formed an alliance against the dictatorship. In these dire times Musharraf needed help from a political entity who has popular support to strengthen him else it was time for him to leave the stage. At this crucial moment when the way was being paved towards democracy PPP made the biggest mistake to talk to the dictator for a share in power.

In every deal there is give and take where both parties negotiate on certain needs. The nature of “needs” from PPP as seen now is more of a facade to the actual agenda of an individual, the party leader Benazir Bhutto. Benazir individually without the consent of her party secretively met Musharraf and kept on meeting his colleagues till today. The prime need of Benazir is the remission from the corruption charges against her, which as it sounds is a personal interest and not the interest of the nation. Because of the arrogance of Musharraf and some deadlocks over certain issues she went to US to put foreign pressure on Musharraf to strike a deal for share in power. This shows how selfish and insincere she is and how far she can go to get into power, clearly in opposition to what her father died for. After that deal BB is supposed to be the prime minister and Musharraf can remain the president, obviously after certain amendments in the constitution; again for personal interests and not for the nation. The power will then be divided among both leaders; the percentage of division of power is one of the reasons for the deadlock in the negotiations.

Now clearly this whole episode is not in the interest of the nation, neither is it good for democracy. The deal is not an end to dictatorship instead it will strengthen it. It has made PPP less popular among the people of Pakistan and considerably dropped it's vote bank. This deal also shows that if it is successful and the power sharing agreement is reached then the elections will be rigged in order to uphold the agreement as neither party of this deal is popular. This is a blatant act against the spirit of democracy. It is high time for all of us to put an end to the corrupt leadership that makes mockery of people’s sentiments, national interests and the spirit of democracy. We need popular opposition and not a deal to end the dictatorship so all Pakistanis can enjoy the freedom in democracy that was the vision of Quad-i-Azam.

Written By Kamran
xeus_man@yahoo.com