Our politicians, especially parliamentarians, are setting traditions that may later on be cited as highly damaging for democracy - the otherwise least bad governance system. What compounds the tragedy is the politicians' insistence on defending those flawed traditions as the 'spirit' of democracy.
Latest example thereof was the election of the leader of the opposition in the Senate. The chairman of the Senate declared the JUI-F candidate the winner with 19 votes and the PML-N candidate the loser despite getting 24 votes since the votes he got included 9 from the PML-Q senators who split from the party after its leaders joined the coalition.
The odd part of the affair is that, earlier, the Senate chairman had 'constitutionally' allocated to these 9 PML-Q dissident seats among those reserved for the opposition, ie accepted them as part of the opposition. But when it came to counting their votes as those of the opposition, the same logic was consigned to the dustbin.
After the recent constitutional amendments, parliamentarians have no option but to follow the party chief's whims. Party strategy ie interests of the party's top brass are now supreme not ethics, equity and other such values that once mattered to the civilised polities.
The present regime is focused on completing its term; it is inconsequential how its bad governance hurts the system and the country. The regime may yet complete its term (courtesy its supporters at home and abroad), but the reality is that the damage being done to the economy and the polity may become irreparable. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are largely the legacy of the first PPP regime's nationalisation policy. Over the years, the bureaucracy-managed SOEs became bleeding wounds, and each time the PPP came to power, they were made to bleed more profusely because they were burdened with higher levels of unproductive workforces.
Escalating SOE losses were loaded into taxes payable by the rest of the economy. 'Enlightened' politicians called it the strategy of achieving "fairer distribution of wealth". It may seem so because the honest taxpayer pays for providing jobs and livelihood to the unemployed, but is a grossly flawed solution of the problem.
Do SOEs 'employ' people? With their activity levels going down steadily, do SEOs 'employ' more people or just give them handouts because there isn't much for these 'employees' to do? Doesn't it encourage seeking wages without earning them? The 'enlightened' politicians don't fault this unethical tradition.
The present PPP regime has added a new dimension to this distortion. Besides taxes, huge public borrowings from banking sector too are funding the loss-making SOEs, the most harmful effect thereof being a baffling reduction in credit to the private sector that contributes to economic growth in a highly significant manner. What this policy did to the economy is evidenced by GDP growth rates of the last three years. The private sector is contracting rapidly, and in some cases, shifting to more rationally administered economies. If this trend continues, will the SOEs produce what the private sector does, and meet the national demands?
Simply pouring more money into SOEs to help them 'employ' more people is a lethal strategy. If SOEs must go on employing more people, they must be reorganised and their assets upgraded/replaced to help them generate real value (at least at break-even cost); without that they will collapse completely and quickly.
During the past three years, the regime neither reorganised the SOEs nor upgraded their productive capacity to make them more progressively efficient and thus a much lower burden on the exchequer, nor prepared for privatisation the SOEs whose output or services don't directly impact the low-paid majority.
In the past six weeks, the Auditor General's reports disclosed irregularities, embezzlements and mismanagement in state offices and SOEs whose impact added up to Rs 662.196 billion in 2009-10. But there are no credible statistics of the recovery of this huge loss of tax revenue, which formed the bulk of that year's fiscal deficit.
Making things worse are the reports that, in Rs 85.23 billion worth of irregularities, embezzlements and mismanagement in the Ministry of Water & Power, weak internal controls caused losses worth Rs 882 million, but the Auditor General didn't consider them 'important' enough to report to the Public Accounts Committee.
In the context of containing waste, the image of the Public Accounts Committee too is being tarnished by the fact that it is headed by the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly; PPP politicians fondly point to this fact, and coolly pass the blame for unchecked resource waste on to him.
In this scenario, if people blame the present 'democratic dispensation' for acting like a conduit for waste of the tax revenue, the Prime Minister calls them anti-democracy realising little that he is insulting the intelligence of the people that he expects to vote for his, or any other party, in the next general elections.
But the regime deserves credit for giving people limitless freedom - suicidal liberty to defy accountability and court verdicts, and committing tax evasion, bribery, robbery, dacoity, kidnapping for ransom, targeted killing, and damaging state and private assets, and national security. Should these be the fruits of democracy? Credit must also be given to PML-N's Khwaja Asif for admitting that the policies, administrative practices, and attitude of the present regime are causing irreparable damage to the image of democracy. What he needs reminding is that it is the PML-N that ensured the regime's continuation in power in the name of democracy.
Regretting the regime's refusal to fix governance flaws (eating away the roots of the economy and polity) isn't enough. While the people may shun the coalition members in the next elections, they won't forgive the PML-N because, as 'the' opposition party, it failed in reforming or reshaping a regime that is damaging the country.
Since mid-2008, the PML-N leaders have been complaining about the regime's turning back on every promise it made, and finding almost every state action counterproductive. But for reasons it knows best, the PML-N did not shake the regime. The passage of the Finance Bill 2011 will prove yet again the duplicity of the PML-N.
While the charade for securing party interests continues (instead of a collective effort to resolve the multiplicity of issues facing the nation) state bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies are acting exactly as they please. It is virtually a "free for all" in the name of democracy. The question is: will this charade last or "the end is nigh"?