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Is democracy about to break out in Pakistan once again? There is a flicker of light which could grow steadily or blow out quickly or remai...

Is democracy about to break out in Pakistan once again? There is a flicker of light which could grow steadily or blow out quickly or remain a flicker for a long time. At this stage anything is possible. General Pervez Musharraf’s first experiment in democracy concerns village and city councils and comes dressed in all the proper words. He promised transparency and accountability, a fair electoral process based on new comprehensive and verified voter lists, the removal of biases against rural areas and the lowering of the voting age to 18. The regime has thought it through, it would seem.

The announcement was timed for Pakistan Day and coincides with President Clinton’s visit. A national debate is invited before the proposals are finalised and can pave the way for elections starting in December 2000 and ending in May 2001. It all looks very correct on paper, is probably well-intentioned and everyone must hope it will give hundreds of thousands of people a voice in local government at last. It looks however to be a vast exercise involving nothing less than the de novo setting up of three-tier local democratic institutions. It is not that it is a sham exercise: the programme has been worked out in considerable detail suggesting sincerity of purpose. It is the ambitiousness of the programme combined with the lack of institutions to implement it barring the army that is worrying. The grand designs of Pakistani regimes have tended to be jerry-built and to collapse in a mess. One must hope that is not the case here.

If the regime is going to build democracy from the ground up, it may be several years before Pakistan gets popular provincial and national governments. The question uppermost in the minds of non-Pakistanis is about the timetable for a return to full democracy. From the Commonwealth which suspended Pakistan from membership to President Clinton who will probably be pressing Musharraf on the subject today, everyone is impatient for an answer. External pressure keeps the issue of democracy alive and makes it harder for the regime to ignore the absence of democratic process and settle in for the long haul. So external pressure is absolutely necessary and should continue. But total scepticism about the first steps towards democracy would be out of place, in part because it is premature at this stage.

Pakistan’s interlocutors would be unwise to dismiss it as a stunt, a diversionary tactic, a cover for protracted military rule and therefore meaningless. Of course it is possible that “grassroots democracy” is a ruse to take the heat off Musharraf. But if the whole programme is carried out carefully and results in genuinely popular local councils, it undoubtedly will be good for Pakistan and the question of the original motivation for the exercise will be quite irrelevant. The fact is the programme responds to a lacuna in the Pakistani system. The iron grip of the feudals and bureaucracy must be broken before the lives of ordinary people in the countryside can improve and education, health and other social services reach them. Even at the practical level of improved voter lists there may well be something to show. There is no need to rubbish the local polls experiment. Musharraf needs to go further faster.