SEVERAL readers - most of them foreigners or expatriate Pakistanis - have asked me why I haven't unequivocally condemned the army coup of October 12.

Actually, even though I can rationalize the takeover, I do cringe at the thought that I am, in fact, supporting a military junta. By now we all know the chain of events that led to the coup, and if anybody recites what happened on that famous flight from Colombo just once more, I shall scream. We are also all too aware of Nawaz Sharif's blunders of omission and commission, and will no doubt learn of many more.

Nevertheless, those of us who believe in democracy as the only system that guarantees public participation and human rights feel that incompetent and corrupt leaders like Nawaz sharif and Benazir Bhutto should only be kicked out by the voters who elected them in the first place. Indeed, democracy has a built-in mechanism to ensure accountability through the ballot. Under such a dispensation, extra-constitutional steps to remove an elected government have no legitimacy. The people's will must be respected.

In this country, many members of the elite are of the firm view that an illiterate electorate is incapable of making the right choice. This arrogant perspective neglects the fact that the choices before the people are not exactly brilliant, and they have therefore had to vote on the basis of the lesser of the evils before them. True, both mainstream parties have their respective supporters but their nominees for elections are, by and large, serious candidates for a rogues' gallery. Also, the electoral exercise is the only opportunity poor voters get to extract promises for civic improvements from their candidates. As an American politician once remarked, "Ultimately, all politics are local."

So while I may question the educational achievements and intelligence quotient of our representatives, I have no reservations about the wisdom of our voters. They are, by and large, very conscious of their rights and they cast their votes with all seriousness. Basically, they end up by voting for candidates who they think can deliver. To this extent, they are not concerned with allegations of corruption against them, or about their views on our nuclear programme and the Kashmir dispute. For them, the bottom line is: can the candidate get the village an electricity connection, and can he take on the local SHO? And if they vote for the district's chaudhri, it is because they think he can solve some of their civic problems.

Elitists who never bother to get themselves registered and stand in line and vote are very critical of the Pakistani voter, holding him responsible for the leadership that gets elected. Having abdicated their own responsibility, they sit in their well-appointed drawing rooms and confidently assert that democracy cannot work in Pakistan because of the ignorance of the electorate. Conveniently, they forget about their own apathy.

Without having lost faith in democracy as the only civilized system of government, I must confess to a certain degree of weariness with politicians who have cynically used it to attain power without accepting the checks and balances that go with it. For them, elections are an expensive and tedious exercise they have to go through periodically in order to make money and enhance their social standing. Political parties give tickets to rich candidates who can afford to finance their own election; almost invariably, they are feudals who can use their clout and clan connections to garner a respectable number of votes.

For me, Nawaz Sharif is the very antithesis of a democrat: here is a man who was first made finance minister of Punjab by the then governor, General Jilani, and then elevated to chief ministership by Zia. Finally, with ISI funding, he became the prime minister. While climbing up the political ladder, he used his muscle to lean on nationalized banks to lend him and his family hundreds of millions until they became one of the biggest industrial groups in the country. Never sated, he continued milking the system even after he did not need any more money.

When people ask me how I can support a military coup against a democratically elected government, I reply (somewhat defensively) that this was the only possible way of getting rid of the man. Having neutered all the possible threats to his autocratic rule, he had turned his attention to the press, and it was only a matter of time before this last bastion of critical speech was muzzled. Given his lack of respect for democratic institutions, I have no doubt in my mind that he would have rigged the elections shamelessly when the time came. Having mounted a tiger, he just could not get off: after what he had done to the opposition, he could not afford the risk of being voted out of office and facing the same fate. The stake were just too high for him to suddenly see the light and become a true democrat.

Consider the man's track record during the first half of his term: from having his goons storm the Supreme Court to having Najam Sethi of the Friday Times roughed up and held incommunicado for a month, he showed every sign of intolerance and fascism. But having said this, let me emnphasize that I do not regard military rule as a panacea: time and again, they have proved that they have no solutions to Pakistan's highly complex problems. Each time they have seized power, they have left a bigger mess in their wake. Above all, once ensconced, they never leave of their own free will.

This, then, is the liberal dilemma: how to condone a military takeover and the overthrow of an elected government, even though Nawaz Sharif was acting more and more like his mentor, General Zia. In the liberal lexicon, army coups are automatically evil, while elected governments, no matter how corrupt and inefficient, are preferable to military juntas.

According to conventional wisdom, the cure for a poorly run democracy is more democracy, not less. This school of thought holds that no matter what their faults, both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto should have been given a chance to discredit themselves to the point when they would be rejected by voters. At this point, a vibrant new leadership would emerge. Unfortunately, by the time this miracle took place, I doubt very much there would have been a country left for this breed of honest politicians to lead.

But as far as I am concerned, the fact that leaders of religious parties like Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rahman have begun opposing the military regime because it is liberal is ground enough for me to support it. I may not be clear about whom I am for, but I know who I am against.