Follow the German model

Revolutions and tsunamis have one thing in common; both bring death and destruction in their wake. One wonders whether the politicians, who indulge in bellicose blusters in their public rallies, to change the political landscape of Pakistan. And if they know and understand their implications then they are not honest in presenting them as recipe for bringing the country out of the morass that it is lodged into.
History is a witness to the fact that revolutions only represent aberrations in the political process of development of the nations rather than the norms. The countries who have attained higher status in the comity of nations as economic, political and military powers, owe it to the uninterrupted evolutionary process of necessity-driven reforms. Pakistan also needs to adopt an evolutionary course of reforms rather than going for an out-of-this world approach to fix the maladies afflicting our political fabric.
Our woes stem from the feudalistic character of our politics that has promoted a culture of graft, which has hindered the strengthening of state institutions. So the first priority has to be systemic reforms. There are no two opinions that our future as a dynamic and progressive Islamic country is linked with the continuation of democratic process; which unlike the prevalent system is truly democratic and capable of breaking the walls erected by feudalism.
It is interesting to note that out of the 372 seats of the National Assembly, nearly 250 belong to the rural areas which explains the predominance of the feudal class in the legislature. This is the main reason for the perpetuation of the archaic colonial political dispensation by vested interests. This vicious circle can be and needs to be broken by changing the way we elect our representatives to the legislatures.
The system that can resolve this problem and make our parliament truly representative of all the shades of political opinion and entities in the country is the proportional representation (PR) system. In this arrangement, the people basically vote for parties and not individual candidates and the parties get representation in the parliament in accordance with the percentage of votes that they get.
The basic principles underlying proportional representation elections are that all voters deserve representation and that all political groups in society deserve to be represented in the legislatures in proportion to their strength in the electorate. There are a number of versions of PR system adopted by different countries and the one with the best track record is the German model which combines the advantages of the single-member constituency and the PR system, under which 50 percent candidates are elected under the single-member arrangement while the other 50 percent are elected through PR and the parties get seats on the basis of the overall percentage of votes obtained by them. Pakistan needs to follow the German model.