Our country today is an archetypal example of the Machiavellian "princedom" in which sovereignty does not resides in the people and which is premised on the infamous "doctrine of necessity." In fact, this doctrine has been used repeatedly by our successive military dictators to circumscribe the supremacy and integrity of our constitution. In this ignoble task, they always have had a readily available servile judiciary to help them and to swear by their "personal constitutional orders" most familiarly known as PCOs.
Our present "neither-parliamentary-nor-presidential" system under invisible military "straps" has no parallel in political philosophy or contemporary history. For decades, we have had a semblance of parliamentary system without our parliament ever functioning as a "full sovereign body" or playing any role in the country's decision-making. The only laws they are good at making are those that preserve their privilege and perquisite.
The new parliament is neither free nor sovereign. Like its predecessor, the present parliament is also being held hostage by the same "willful ruler" who is either the "child of fortune" or "was born into power" or who "acquired power and wealth through deceit and force." The unlimited authority inherent in our one-man-rule smacks of France's Louis XIV's famous dictum: "L'etat, c'est moi" - "I am the state."
Last eight years have indeed been a painful period of our crisis-ridden history. We now figure prominently in the top global lists of most corrupt, most violent and most undemocratic countries. The constitution and the law have become the property of one man who has been changing them at will. The federation is at risk.
Governance is at its worst. Corruption is rampant. The country's economy is in shambles. There are no signs of the new government anywhere.
The plunderers, profiteers, and the looters, murderer and the killers could not have a safer haven anywhere else in the world. No other country is familiar with the normatic practice of forgiving as a matter of rule the elite loan-defaulters and the known highly placed plunderers of national exchequer. Double Shah is a character that now epitomises Pakistan's new identity.
What disappoints the people of Pakistan is that today, a government they elected so enthusiastically on February 18 is using the same doctrine to justify its externally dictated and expediency based reconciliation with the same system that the people had rejected so overwhelmingly. The country remains possessed by the same invisible power that has destroyed its constitutional structure and ruined its institutional integrity.
