Democracy: Six notches under

No wonder Pakistan, despite being under “civilian rule” since 2008, ranked among the top 10 “worst-performing” democracies out of 167 independent states. Pakistan slipped six notches to 124th place in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index 2024, published on Thursday.

The release of the index coincided with Islamabad's decision not to allow the opposition’s Grand Alliance Conference in the federal capital, despite it being an "indoor" event. This almost vindicated the index, which ranked South Korea and Bangladesh alongside Pakistan among the worst performers, falling in the global rankings.

Pakistan, in the last few years, has been badly hit by political, judicial, and media chaos, and there is no sign of improvement either, despite some positive economic indicators — and that, too, has a lot to do with the decision-making of non-political players or interference. The recent expansion of the federal cabinet and massive raises in the salaries and other perks of parliamentarians are also drawing fire amid the day-to-day price hikes for the common man.

 What really happened in the last year is that Pakistan’s ranking went down by six points. Irrespective of what the Index said, the fact remains that it all started with one of the most controversial votes held on February 8, 2024. Not only were the elections delayed for almost six months from the scheduled date of October 2023 without any reasonable justification, but also, for the first time, the date was fixed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. 

This was followed by surprising decisions days before the polling, when the main and most popular opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), by all accounts, including independent observers, was denied its election symbol, ie, the cricket bat, while its founder, former prime minister Imran Khan, remained in jail. 

Thus, in a first, under any civilian rule, the leading party’s candidates contested the elections as independents with different election symbols. 

Yet, surprising everyone, the "Independent candidates" emerged as the single largest elected group in any multi-party-based vote. However, the crisis for them didn’t end there, as it was followed by the controversial role of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Thus, on the election front, it was quite obvious that our democratic ranking would go down by the end of the year.

Elections in Pakistan are generally “managed,” and unfortunately, we are constantly on a "decline," going from bad to worse if we analyse only the last three general elections since 2013.

The other area in which Pakistan is drastically descending in ranks is “free speech.” The government’s move to introduce the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2025 in the name of curbing fake news and disinformation has almost exposed the democratic credentials of the ruling party and its allies, such as the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and MQM (Pakistan). National and international outcry over this highly controversial law raised serious questions about the democratic credentials of the so-called Parliament.

All media stakeholders joined hands under the banner of the Joint Action Committee, comprising bodies of working journalists, newspaper owners, editors, and heads of news channels, and rejected PECA en masse, dubbing it a “Black Law” and also “Martial Law” for the media.

In a democracy, free speech is respected, but the government criminalised it by explicitly labeling it a ‘crime’ in the new media law. Secondly, the “haste” in which the law was passed without even sharing the draft with media stakeholders, prompted countrywide journalists’ protests, even joined by media owners.

The most challenging and contentious issue the government faced was not just the controversial 26th Constitutional Amendment but also the crisis within the judiciary. At a time when six Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges, in a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, clearly alleged facing “pressure” from “unknown” forces and the presence of a “hidden camera” in the house of one of them, the issue of the Constitutional Bench further complicated matters.

The way the present Parliament passes laws in haste, at times within minutes, has dealt a serious dent to democracy. The dilemma of Pakistan’s political landscape for a long time has been undemocratic practices in political parties, where office bearers from top to bottom were “nominated” and not elected. 

Therefore, democracy is still a dream for democrats and for the people who always come to the polling stations and cast their votes. Ironically, their vote was never honoured, and thus the slogan, "Vote Ko Izzat Doe," (respect the ballot) is still relevant.

According to EIU democracy index report more than half of the world's population in over 70 countries held elections last year, including Pakistan and problems such as “rigging” were highlighted as being common.

“Elections in South Asia in 2024 were marred by fraud and violence. In the Pakistan elections in February, there were allegations of political repression and interference by authorities,” the report said. 

The EIU's consensus is that despite a record election year in 2024 — when more than half of the global population went to the polls —  Democracy Index recorded another democratic decline. 

The average score fell to 5.17, its lowest since the index began in 2006, down from 5.23 in 2023. Only 45% of the world’s population lives in a democracy, 39% under authoritarian rule, and 15% in “hybrid regimes” that combine electoral democracy with authoritarian tendencies.

Pakistan has a lot to learn from this report, or else we will continue to decline in the Media Index, Judicial Index, and Democratic Index. 

Gagging media, and silencing the country’s most popular political and nationalist leaders — be it PTI founder Imran Khan or voices from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — doesn’t just expose the cracks in our democracy. It sadly also proves that we are trapped in a hybrid system where "control", which is not remote anymore, gets the better of representation.

The writer is a analyst and columnist for Geo, Jang, and The News

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