I think political process in Pakistan has been suffering from a dual flaw. Firstly the current political process is continuation of ideological politics of the past which was anti-imperialism, nationalistic, religious one and communist. Secondly the present political ethos of liberal democracy with market economy is leaving little room for ideological politics. In democracy ideas come later and theories or ideologies are the products of the very... democratic process itself. This dual and somehow contradictory nature of the political process has many implications.
The first implication of this politics is dynastic politics, family politics or simply the belief that certain people or political leaderships are indispensable for the political process and without them we cannot continue the political process. So family politics is there owing to the fact that certain people are heir to the leadership and ideologies of the past and without them the very political process would die. Resultantly political parties are not as democratic as they ought to be.
The second implication of the dual flaw of the political process is that the very process is being retarded owing to the very nature of the politics i.e. the dualism of ideology vs. pragmatism. Furthermore if we closely examine the ideologies they are not really ideologies. Although days of the ideological politics are gone yet ideologies have certain utilities e.g. nationalism, religion or communism unite and motivate the people towards political activism. Unfortunately, in today’s politics ideologies are there only in name and they have become pseudo ideologies. The very ideologues when come to power compromise their ideologies or there is a visible contradiction between their thoughts and actions. Consequently, this pseudo nature of the ideologies makes the political process retarded at least intellectually.
The third implication is that the current political process is not transforming the status quo. One thing is obvious that we cannot completely do away with the status quo. There will always be status quos as long humanity is divided into groups, classes and categories and controlling authorities. As there are states for example there are status quos. The point is not to get rid of the status quo but to transform the status quo into a less ruthless or benevolent and pro-people status quo. So the very political process which is dynastic, pseudo ideological and intellectually retarded is not transforming the status quo. The agents of status quo are there. Pseudo ideologies are strengthening the status quo and politicians are shareholders of the status quo.
