WHETHER the completion of this government’s tenure is indeed a reinforcement of the democratic process will only be known if it is voted out when national elections are held. This is not to assume this government will follow the precedent set by its icon ZAB in the 1977 elections and seek to avert rejection by selective rigging: demonstrating the lure and power of money has been this democratically elected government’s hallmark.

The voter’s calibre matters. His integrity is at least as important as the candidate’s. Since 2008, carrots have been proffered and munched aplenty. If the majority worships Mammon, the PPP et al may very well retain if not heighten the existing profile.

Yet, as this is generally recognised as a justly denigrated government, an inability to purge ourselves electorally will not do much to validate the democratic mode of non-transition. If democracy is to win itself kudos it has to show the grosser offenders in its present company the door.

Admittedly, bhatta, disappearances, killings, show that the democratically empowered also have proficiency in the use of the stick. But the thing about national elections is that, when a trend is clear, extensive attempts to obstruct or distort its expressions show.

The stick becomes embarrassing. And any government’s tactical problem with carrots in national elections is that there are too many rabbits and too big a field. People know when a national electoral verdict is engineered or denied and they are reluctant to take it.

That was evident in 1977, although international observers and the local media were not the empowered presences they are today. The troops Bhutto deployed were not much use when it came to a ‘face-off’ with a palpable mass of fellow citizens.

If the completion of PM Gilani’s five-year tenure ends in an unconvincing renewal of Pakistan’s existing democratic coalitional armistice, it could prove to be more of a challenge than reinforcement for dynamic democracy.

One reason for the patience shown to this government is a fear that the volatility inherent in popular demos and calculatedly violent party street tactics can become a threat to stability. Unrest and criticism may easily be interpreted as ideological hostility.

Not only is there that familiar local ghost, the supreme national interest, waiting to intervene, there is the smarter spectre of the supreme global democratic interest, itching to rescue grounded native democratic ships.

Pakistan can ill afford to be or appear beleaguered by secular let alone non-secular uncivil democrats.

Unfortunately, the incumbent governments (provincial and federal) have shown themselves misusing the democratic rubric as much as the religious rubric was misused in the past.

The ruling clique is often seen as worse than merely inept and corrupt and suspected of national interests aside for personal gain.

Scandals relating to official administration and destructive mismanagement in organisations like PIA, the railways, etc have too much substance for comfort.

Furthermore, the response to court rulings and the judiciary is one of arrogance and cunning. This civil administration is virtually asking for appropriate compulsion under the constitution. Perhaps the Supreme Court would have demanded such assistance long ago but for misgivings that the treatment can be worse than the disease.

However, in popular terms the bald truth is messiahs in khaki will not remain beyond the pale indefinitely. People can find their own army’s help at least as liberating and stabilising as Nato’s or amiable neighbours’ in promoting the right kind of local democracy.

Another bald truth is that when it comes to correlating civil-military democratic endeavours and motives, the global democracy apparatus has its own expert definitions: witness varying responses and pronouncements on the Arab Spring. A would-be more democratic Pakistan could be sucked into a vortex if Pakistanis lose out on picking a competent and trusted government.

Gen Musharraf whitewashed his ‘essence of democracy’ dictatorship by persuading local and global critics that the only alternatives to himself as helmsman were fanatics, obscurants and xenophobes.

President Zardari’s guile far outstrips Musharraf’s. His overlapping performances as a party co-chairman and Pakistan’s president update the stereotype of a man whose agenda is as misleadingly apparent as the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The consequences can be especially grave when the public’s doubts spill over into anxiety about state-establishment dealings and Pak-US ties or the Af-Pak Indian equation. To pun unforgivably with mixing metaphors, Mr Zardari is seen as hand in glove with many hidden hands.

The parliamentary opposition’s role is at least as relevant as the treasury’s in curtailing misgovernment; and the opposition has failed miserably in meeting electoral expectations. Be it at the federal or provincial levels and whichever the party in question the entire focus is on power.

The revolving parliamentary-door syndrome in coalition partners is also related to power enhancement. Parliamentarians have not fought the corrupt routine of a decadent system from within. Sometimes they have given it life support: under the misconception that is the way to keep politics in the civil domain?

The US establishment still seems most comfortable with President Zardari. The bounty on Hafiz Saeed is an index of the dimension America gives his following. How reflective is a ‘Zia-ist’ mindset among the Pakistani public’s? The pat answer is that in national elections the voters’ record shows a definitive rejection of clerical-ised politics.

But trends change; as do jargon and terminological connotation. How different are the gradients of fundamentalism, Islamisation, Islamist, down the slippery slope of jihadist and terrorist?

This is a question that disturbs Pakistan and America.

Both the international and local media variously blur and tweak opinions and estimates to aid favoured fallacies or propagandist ends. Bias and misconception have to be brought out into the open to be dispelled.

The only way to the right answers is consciously to engage in a multi-layered discourse that is open, credible and respected. The protagonists have to be honoured by the people they speak for and to. And the sole superpower has to stop banking on clout if seeking hearts and minds.

The writer is a freelance contributor.