LIKE the West, populists in Pakistan are dog-whistling against democracy by eroding public trust in the state and its democratic institutions to worm their way into power. There is hope on one end of Pakistan’s political spectrum as the parliamentary system takes its course, while despair on the other with extreme populist political sleaze using election results to con the public with the corrupt history of their governments, including turning schools into cattle-sheds on international democracy indices. After Jan 6, the populist sleaze in America surrounding election results is now morphing into blatant calls to replace democracy with authoritarian rule. Trump is now an idol and winning primaries with religious voters. Speaker Johnson said he will make public policy with the Bible, which is his worldview (Mike Johnson, theocrat: the House speaker and a plot against America, Nov 4, 2023, The Guardian). The Republican Congress is loyal to Trump instead of the American Constitution. It will be the same in Pakistan’s parliaments as well. They want to bring the Federal Trade Commission and Communications agency under the president’s control to help companies avoid regulations protecting consumers, control media, pull media licenses, and sue and prosecute journalists (Feb 24, 2024, Reidout, MSNBC).
In the UK, Former PM Liz Truss has busted populist political sleaze in Pakistan in her CPAC interview. Populist Truss said she is a victim of the establishment (Britain’s ‘deep state’ thwarted my plans, Feb 22, 2024, The Guardian). In fact, she had to resign from office after 50 days for destroying the UK economy. Truss’s mini-budget caused a $30bn (total £70bn) hole in the UK economy, currency devaluation, and knocked off £425bn from pension funds assets in 2022 alone (City A.M, Feb 9, 2024). Truss claims she was unable to return control to the people after Brexit due to the opposition of the establishment and the state itself. Truss said that 500 powerful quangos or quasi-non-governmental organizations in Britain run everything and they are happy with the status quo. The power of politicians has moved to quangos, bureaucrats, and lawyers, blocking democratically elected governments from enacting policies in the last 30 years. In America, you call it the administrative state.
Ex-PM Truss called civil servants activists. They have a voice in the civil service in a way that was not there 30 or 40 years ago. The reality is cabinet members disregard the ministerial code of conduct (Feb 6, 2024, The Guardian). Governments in the West continue to downsize bureaucracy and bring more political cronies to the levers of power to avoid democratic checks and balances. As a bonus, it replaces democracy at the grassroots with populism, guts merit, and the rule of law while fuelling corruption. Today, 60% of Americans cite corruption as their major concern.
In her Fox News op-ed, Truss opined that agents of the left are active in the establishment and state. The truth is she gave a failed economic plan with unfunded $54bn tax cuts, huge tax relief to the wealthy and collected £42bn in unpaid taxes. She continued Boris Johnson’s authoritarian policy of suspending parliament, which the UK Supreme Court ruled as unlawful. As party policy, Truss did not devolve power to parliament and local bodies. She failed to fund economic projects for the poor north, including HS2, increase stagnant wages, control the cost of living crisis, and improve public services with populist fallouts on democracy globally. Populists are blaming the establishment for the economy in Pakistan. The fact is that the US, the UK and Europe are following Reagan-Thatcher economic reforms of the 1980s. Their policies have resulted in a high cost of living, unemployment, stagnant wages and zero social mobility in the last five decades after mega tax cuts, privatization and de-manufacturing. Today, wealthy Americans pay less than 25% tax, which was 70% in 1950 and 91% under Eisenhower. Trump added $9T to the national debt in 4 years. It has left the US with a $34T debt and $1T debt servicing cost. Both the UK and US had £250bn and $850bn debt in 1979, respectively.
The 13 years of Tory government show the futility of Pakistani demands for 10-year power. UK numbers show a dismal picture of living standards (7% fall), with 30 million priced out of decent living by the end of 2024 and women working two months for free due to a 15 percent lower salary (Feb 23, 2023, The Guardian). More than 8 million children are living below the poverty level in the world’s 6th largest economy. The resignation of Truss shows the failure of populist theory given in her book ‘Ten Years to Save the West’. Finally, Project 2025 in America has revealed how Republicans plan to remove restraints by attacking the establishment or administrative state for making their leader immune from the rule of law after the failure of Jan 6. They now plan to use the House (Congress & Senate), constitution, and MPs to return to the White House (Nuclear option in Constitution: Radical Right’s roadmap for ending democracy, MSNBC and GOP Project 2025). Pakistan needs to avoid similar populist sleaze for a power grab and focus on meaningful reforms to serve the masses as per global democracy indices.
—The writer is senior political analyst based in Islamabad.
Email: [email protected]
views expressed are writer’s own.
