Crisis of Pakistani democracy
THE ongoing battle between the opposition and the PTI government has brought to the surface the worst of the prevailing political culture. It illustrates patterns of behaviour that should have…
Mossack Fonseca and Pakistani democracy
Prime ministers of countries of two hundred million people should never put themselves in a position to have to field questions about why their wealth, or the wealth of their…
Course correction for Pakistani democracy
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) report which forms the basis of the Musharraf treason trial would be rejected by an area magistrate (the lowest magistrate in the judicial hierarchy) in…
Pakistani democracy and idealism
Pakistan is a security state – something that has led to many an ill in the country. It would have been acceptable if in the last 60-plus-years we had transformed…
Pakistani democracy
Pakistan’s unstable democracy completes five years. The occasion merits a review of what kind of democracy our next generation deserves and how we can achieve it. This is important because…
Exit democracy
WHILE Pakistan clings to fantasies of hybridity regarding its political framework, the Economist Intelligence Unit has categorised it as an authoritarian regime. The EIU’s latest Democracy Index ranks Pakistan 124…
Democracy’s missing half
The global movement for gender equality has driven change across many sectors, but political representation remains one of the most formidable challenges. Although women make up nearly half of the…
Better democracy
PAKISTAN’S electoral history is a tale of evolving political consciousness, as evidenced by voter turnout oscillations. The dismally low 44 per cent turnout in 2008, a manifestation of public scepticism,…
Democracy and dystopia
IN Ireland, ordinary people are hoarding firewood, afraid that they will not be able to heat their homes in the upcoming winter owing to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. In Iran, protests against the…
Religion and Pakistaniat
IT seems that Islam as well as ‘Pakistaniat’ come under threat very often in this country. And to ‘defend’ either, in fact both, it is always appeals to religion, nationalism…
