ISLAMABAD – Governance of the country showed a downward trend as the parliament’s hold over civil and military institutions, respect for civil rights of the people and the law and order situation appeared to have weakened over the last two and half years, says a PILDAT report titled ‘Mid-Term Assessment of the Quality of Democracy in Pakistan.’
The report also highlighted the achievements of the government and said that restoration of judiciary, 18th Amendment and devolution, NFC Award, effective role of the PACs , Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan and elections in Gilgit Baltistan would cast important and far reaching impact in the subsequent years. The study has been conducted by 25-member panel, Democracy Assessment Group (DAG), which consisted of prominent scholars, politicians, academicians, researchers and reporters.
As per the break-down, under the category of Citizen-State Relationship there was dissatisfaction with the rule of law, especially in the context of rights of the minorities. Same was the case with Representative and Accountable Government category which indicated that accountability was not satisfactory. Under the category of Effective and Responsive Government, again score was low as the performance of the democratic government during the last two and half years was again not satisfactory.
The same case was with Democratic Effectiveness of the Parliament category. The report was presented in Roundtable discussion organized by PILDAT on Tuesday. Ilahi Baksh Somro chaired the roundtable discussion. Presenting the features of the report, Shahid Hamid, former governor of Punjab, who was also a member of the panel, said that the DAG had prepared the report on the basis of framework developed by Sweden-based International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (I-IDEA).
Shahid Hamid said that the biggest danger to the system at present was not from military, but from the worsening law and order situation in the country. “The law and order situation in various parts of the country is terrible as writ of the government has completely eroded there,” Hamid said. He further said that though there was no economic disaster in the offing but there was fear that the federal government could go bankrupt and might lead to reduction in development budget.
Javed Jabbar, a former information minister and also a member of the DAG, said that Public Accounts Committee had become the most credible and effective parliamentary body which was a positive sign for the democratic system. He also hailed the parliamentarians for an honest declaration of assets this year.
He, however, pointed out that the governance had remained ineffective as the government could not collect taxes and only 40 percent of the 7000 business firms paid taxes. PPP Information Secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira conceded that there was a lack will in the government over terrorism. He said that working in accordance to the popular demands was not easy.
Ahsan Iqbal of PML-N said that there was always a lobby active against civil government to derail the democracy in the country. Senator Nayyar Bukhari, Ghazi Salahuddin, Iftikhar Ahmad, Javed Hafeez, Prof Dr Waseem, Moinuddin Haider, Mujib-ur-Rehman Shami, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob were also present on the occasion.
