WHEN Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi recently declared that Pakistan’s existing system had failed and could no longer solve the country’s problems, his remarks predictably ignited a national debate. Some welcomed the statement as a rare acknowledgement of reality; others treated it as an indictment of the government. Current beneficiaries rushed to defend the system, while former beneficiaries, now excluded from power, applauded its condemnation. Amid all this noise, one voice remained conspicuously absent: that of the ordinary Pakistani, who bears the heaviest cost of the system’s failure but has little influence over its future.
The controversy soon faded, but the underlying reality remains. Pakistan’s political, administrative and social order is severely paralyzed, though not for everyone. For those with money, connections and influence, the system remains remarkably responsive. Doors open, stalled files begin to move, laws are activated and decisions arrive with surprising speed. Its paralysis becomes visible only when it confronts a citizen without political patronage, financial power or access to the right telephone number. The real question, therefore, is not whether the system works, but whom it works for.
The roots of this dysfunction are evident in Pakistan’s political culture. Most parties speak of democracy but remain unwilling to practise it internally. Party elections are often ceremonial, leadership revolves around families and personalities and disagreement is treated as rebellion. Parties that cannot tolerate democracy within their own ranks cannot establish it nationally. The pursuit of power has likewise become detached from public trust and policy. Political actors seek backroom support, destabilize governments and prosecute rivals. In office, they call the arrangement democracy; once removed, authoritarianism and injustice.
The justice system reflects this inequality. Cases remain unresolved for years, sometimes decades. For an ordinary citizen, justice is expensive, exhausting and needlessly complicated. Court dates accumulate, but judgments do not arrive. A poor person accused of a minor offence may spend years behind bars, while a powerful defendant can exploit influence, elite legal assistance and every procedural opening available. Justice that is neither timely nor equally accessible eventually ceases to be justice; it survives merely as a constitutional promise, solemnly repeated but selectively fulfilled.
Education and healthcare expose another face of this unequal order. Pakistan’s education system often reproduces class divisions, with expensive private institutions providing opportunities while public schools struggle with inadequate teachers, resources and facilities. Too many children remain out of school, while many others receive poor-quality education. Public hospitals face overcrowding, medicine shortages and insufficient staff, while quality private treatment is increasingly unaffordable. A state cannot call itself welfare-oriented when education and healthcare are privileges rather than rights.
The police, bureaucracy and economy follow the same logic. Citizens often need a recommendation, bribe or repeated visits to obtain what they are legally entitled to. Local governments lack continuity, authority and resources, although water, sanitation, transport and neighbourhood development are best addressed locally. Power remains concentrated because decentralization would also mean decentralizing money and influence. Meanwhile, salaried workers and ordinary consumers bear a disproportionate tax burden, while powerful sectors benefit from exemptions. Reform too often means higher bills, fuel prices and taxes for the public.
Alongside political and administrative decline lies an equally troubling intellectual and social deterioration. Religion, which should cultivate knowledge, justice, compassion and human dignity, is too often turned into theatre, commerce, political leverage and a weapon of group identity. Those who question unreliable claims risk being branded hostile to faith, while invented traditions and reckless assertions go unchallenged. Social media rewards those who exploit religious sensitivities to generate outrage and deepen division. Sponsoring ignorance in the name of faith is an assault on its moral and intellectual spirit.
None of these problems will be solved by creating new administrative units, reshuffling ministries or waiting for another messiah or self-proclaimed “wonder boy.” Pakistan has experienced experiments under grand labels: “Islamic rule,” “enlightened moderation,” revolutionary change and promises that change had already arrived. Each time, the public was offered a new slogan, personality and assurances, while the distribution of power, decision-making and governance remained largely untouched. The slogans and rulers changed, but the condition of the ordinary citizen remained the same.
Nations are not built by wonder boys, saviours or supposedly indispensable personalities. They progress through strong, impartial and accountable institutions. A sound system is not one that requires an extraordinary individual every few years to rescue it. It is one that functions under an ordinary but competent officeholder because laws, procedures and institutional limits are stronger than personalities. An order built around individuals begins to collapse when they depart; one founded on constitutionalism and accountability survives changes of leadership.
Meaningful reform requires constitutional supremacy, credible elections, internal party democracy, an efficient justice system, empowered local governments, professional administration, politically neutral policing and sustained investment in education and healthcare. Accountability must apply equally to government and opposition, powerful and powerless alike. Above all, the citizen must be the central stakeholder, not a spectator. Success should be measured not by seminars, inaugurations or speeches, but by timely justice, quality education, accessible healthcare and government offices that treat citizens as rights-holders, not subjects seeking favours.
Pakistan does not merely need new faces. It needs new rules, new priorities and a fundamentally different culture of governance. Until institutions answer to the law rather than personalities, rulers accept accountability instead of defending privilege and politics becomes an instrument of public service rather than a struggle for power, every few years will bring another slogan, another experiment and another “wonder boy”, while the ordinary Pakistani remains unheard, unrepresented and unchanged.
—The writer is Barrister, based in Canada.
