In the 21st century, democracy is considered as probably the ideal from of government. Several attributes such as inclusiveness, freedom, equality and rule law make it distinguished from the other forms of government. A number of political scholars define it through their own ways, however; it is cleared that it government of the people. People directly participate in the elections process and choose their rulers by their own. Political parties, propaganda, Media participation, Public Opinion, difference of opinion, individual and collective freedom and universal Suffrage are some of the unique features of nowadays democratic system.
However, despite all these positive aspects, democratic system is highly Vulnerable to several active and passive challenges. Especially, in the 3rd world and developing countries, government of the people is highly exposed to such devastating factors. For instance, powerful military is one of the major obstacles to the democratic process in the 3rd world countries. Several times, men in uniform intervene in the politics of such under developed countries and establish dictatorial rule by derailing the whole democratic process. Pakistan is probably the most classic example in this regard, where the country is ruled by these military dictators for more than three decades. Military dictatorship is considered a distinct threat to the democracy, under which individual freedom, human liberty and media freedom become highly depleted. However, apart from the direct military interventions, there are some other drastic means as well, which ruin democracy rather slowly but deeply.
More often, democracies die at the hands of elected leaders not of generals. These political leaders are elected through the same electoral process, but they dismantle it after coming in power. Such political leaders use state’s institutions for suppressing the political opponents. Such elected governments highly transform their behavior to autocratic one and tend to limit prerequisites related to democracy and government of the people. Countries like Venezuela, chili, Brazil, Mexico and turkey have witnessed such devastating experiences over the years in terms of their autocratic political systems. Even in the United States of America, under the reign of Donald Trump, the inhabitants came across with ultra-media restrictions, victim blaming, racial discrimination and suppression of political oppositions, which made the democratic process endangered.
Today, in Pakistan situations is getting worst in the prospects of the mentioned dilemmas. The PTI government was ousted as a result of No-Confidence Movement in the month of April. Soon, the coalition of 11 parties in the name of Pakistan Democratic Movement PDM, formed a coalition government. Currently, the democratic society of Pakistan faces awful implications in the government of so-called democratic alliance. Although, the constitution of Pakistan guarantees both individual and collective freedom, liberty of media and political association, yet it has value of a mere piece of paper in the contemporary Pakistan. The political opponents are accused with sedation, corruption and contempt charges, in order to halt their political participation in the process. Same is the case with the media sector as well. The government attempted to ban several main stream media TV channels. More alarmingly, few prominent journalists and anchorpersons are harassed through state’s institutions such as Federal Investigation Agency FIA. They are charged with sedation and contempt allegations as well in order to stop unwanted critical voices. Due to such authoritarian desires lust of suppressing political adversaries, the already fragile democracy of Pakistan is on ventilator, breathing for life.
More importantly, the later challenge is more severe from the former one. Such disintegration, unlike direct military interventions cannot be felt, but occurs on comprehensive scales and damage the democratic norms massively. In order to avoid such devastating challenges to the democratic process, political parties need to launch a Mega political dialogue on major collective matters. For instance, there is exceptional need of charter of democracy in real version; on the issues like elections, accountability and its dimensions, and constitutional and legal role of both civil and military institutions etc. By doing so, the political parties can safeguard the democratic process from both active and passive challenges.
