The case of Iftikhar Chaudhry
In order to understand whether the deposed Chief Justice represents an individual or an institution, it is important to contextualise his case
By Farah Zia
It is a complex undertaking: Trying to take a position on whether the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is an individual or whether he represents an institution. It is complex because, like much else, there is a context.

From the word NGO!
Where NGOs as an institution are important, individuals also have a very important role to play
By Usman Ghafoor
The role of personal 'charisma' in building (or destroying) an institution is often debated in a discussion on non-governmental organisations (NGOs). 19th century German sociologist Max Weber identifies charismatic personalities as bearers of great social and cultural changes. On the flip side, though, charisma may lead to excesses of derangement and deviance. The test of a (charismatic) leader lies not only in his/her ability to create a single event or great movement, but also in their ability to leave a continuous impact on an institutional structure – to transform any given (institutional) setting by investing the regular, orderly offices or aspects of social organisations with some of their qualities and aura.

Dynastic alone
Standard mechanism in Pakistan is to form a party from the top downwards
By Aoun Sahi
In our country, political parties revolve around one individual who is known as the chairperson or president or Quaid or supreme leader. The main leader then picks and chooses the office bearers of the party and also, in some cases, the supporters. Finally, you have got a new party.

Surprisingly, it was not the institutional collapse in politics that led to this Special Report. It was individuals heading the educational institutions for decades that gave us this idea. We had been more than aware of the institutional imbalance -- civil versus military -- in our polity as the original sin that led the other major imbalance -- executive versus legislature and we kept discussing it, even if the hopes weren't too many. For too long we watched the political parties being run like dynasties but favoured them still, because the alternative was bleaker. We saw the non-governmental organisations falling into the same trap, each associated with a name in most cases and we accepted it as a way of life.

But, as said above, we thought we could not just see the educational institutions being run like fiefdoms. But, as I.A.Rehman argues in his piece, once we let the basic institutions of the state -- the party, the parliament, the judiciary, the executive and the military -- to disintegrate, the rot in the rest was to follow as a corollary. He's even spoken about trade and industry chambers, the trade unions, and the media where individuals matter and not the institutions.

The case of deposed Chief Justice, we thought, would make an interesting case study -- if once we let the institutions collapse, individuals cannot retrieve them.

It is, therefore, important to make institutions. We had an example next door but we did not learn. Perhaps it is still not too late.

The complaint that the institutions Pakistan once had have totally decayed and new institutions have not been raised has become a cliché many politicians use without comprehending the import of their statement. But these few words sum up Pakistan's permanent crisis and the root cause of its people's endless ordeal.

The trouble began at the very beginning. When Pakistan came into being it did have a few requisites of a developing collective – a large irrigation system, a good road-rail network, institutions of graduate, post-graduate and professional education, and a functional judiciary – but it was not a State. That is what Mr Jinnah meant when he referred to starting from scratch. The most critical deficiency was lack of social capital.

Power had been transferred to a Constituent Assembly and, as events revealed, it had a very sketchy idea of the task before it. The responsibility for overseeing the formation of the State vested in the Muslim League, a retarded entity; one man, the Quaid-i-Azam, accounted for 90 percent of its human capital and the remaining 10 percent was a mob of nodders, short on intelligence and long on selfishness.

Above all the task of establishing a State and at the same time managing day-to-day affairs fell on a group of people who did not have sufficient experience of public administration. (Those who had some experience in this field – Dr Khan Sahib in Frontier, the Unionists in the Punjab, the nationalists in Sindh, Suhrawardy in Bengal, and of course the non-Muslims everywhere were, for one reason or another, out of the scheme of governance.)

Neither the Muslim League nor the Constituent Assembly, the two supreme political institutions responsible for constructing the new State, realized sufficiently that the colonial edifice bequeathed by the British could not serve their purpose. Among other things, imposition of a unitary form of government on a country whose very raison d'etre was federalism was like subsisting on a poisonous diet. It was essential to replace the colonial structure with a model the new state-in-the-making needed for its ordered growth. Pakistan was almost undone over the nine years that it remained yoked under the Government of India Act of 1935 – an excellent instrument of governance for a colony but suicidal for a free Pakistan federation. During these nine years both the top institutions, the parliament and the party, were thoroughly destroyed.

There is no denying the grave financial and administrative problems as well as the consequences of an unclean partition that Pakistan's early leaders had to contend with. But instead of finding solutions to the many crises confronting them through democratic means, the only safe path dictated by the nature of the new State and the short struggle for independence (in case of the Muslim League), they opted for arbitrary decision-making and sacrificed collective interest to self-aggrandisement.

The Quaid-i-Azam acted as soon as he could (December 1947) to cut the umbilical cord that tied Pakistan to the All-India Muslim League and the Pakistan Muslim League took the party standard. Contrary to his own inclination and despite Suhrawardy's urging, he was persuaded not to open the party's door to non-Muslims. Pakistan had to pay a huge price for this decision which blocked the possibility of the League's becoming a truly national party. Worse, it helped the professional mujavers in its ranks to keep the two-nation theory alive even after its utility had been exhausted as pointed out by none other than the Quaid-i-Azam himself.

At the time of independence, the Muslim League was a mass of people who had faith in its sole leader. When that leader died the link between the masses and the party leadership snapped. It could never be repaired.

A brief attempt was made to save the party as an institution in its own right when it was decided that its president would be outside the government and Ch Khaliquzzaman was chosen as it head. Within a short time he was forced to resign and the presidentship of the League was permanently allotted to the head of the government. The masses were alienated and the party was reduced to a mafia of power-brokers and finally to a commercial enterprise.

The culture of party's subservience to government spawned by the Muslim League in its various incarnations contaminated not only the parties born out of its womb, e-g. The Republican Party, Awami League and PPP, but also those with different parentages, e.g., ANP and its sibblings out of the late NAP.

The absence of genuine political parties facilitated the passage of power into the hands of bureaucrats first and the military later on. It played no small a part in the enforced secession of East Bengal and the alienation of the less populous provinces in the post-1971 Pakistan. Today Pakistan in sinking deeper and deeper in a marsh mainly because it is in the clutches of packs of self-seekers masquerading as democratic political parties.

The other founding institution – the parliament – fared no better.

Was the parliament consulted when Khwaja Nazimuddin succeeded the Quaid as the Governor-General and Liaquat Ali Khan as the Prime Minister or when he was booted out of office? Democracy was repeatedly stabbed in the first half of the 1950s when elections were rigged in the western provinces and the result of the 1954 poll in East Bengal was contemptuously rejected. To this day a fair election has not been possible. Blinded by self-interest, Ghulam Mohammad went to the extent of repudiating the State's independence and then strangulated the parliament itself. The democratic pillars of the state were knocked down and the political superstructure had no better props than a contaminated judiciary and a politicised army. Thus, Ghulam Mohammad must be recognized as the principal wrecker of Pakistan's fundamental institutions – he demolished the parliament, unhinged the judiciary from its moorings, destroyed the non-political character of the army, and undermined the federation by presiding over the mischief that the creation of One Unit was.

The self-styled saviours that tried to found new institutions were inherently incapable of reading the objective reality. Ayub Khan sacked democracy and while pretending to cleanse politics of corrupt elements he fostered the most corrupt element possible-autocracy. Yahya Khan rejected the path of democratic conciliation and drove the country to disintegration. Ziaul Haq mortgaged the State to militants and made the people's faith controversial – all this in the course of a demonic war upon democrats and democratic institutions. Musharraf sought stability for himself at the cost of making the state more vulnerable than ever. And under all despotic regimes the executive organ of the state was defaced by being pushed higher than the other organs and freed of accountability.

In this story of the decline of the Pakistan State politicians like Z. A. Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif also figure and some of their doings cannot be glossed over. But they belong to a different category. Their main fault lay less in increasing the rot than in failure to stem the process.

Every political activist harps on the need to change the system. What he/she means is that the disintegration of the basic institutions of the state – the party, the parliament, the judiciary, the executive and the military – has affected, in varying degrees, all subsidiary institutions such as educational institutions, civil society organisations, professional guilds, trade and industry chambers, the trade unions, the media and its commentators who never stop pontificating (including the present writer), et al.

There is a very simple method of comparing an unstable state with a stable one. In a stable democracy fair elections produce a change only at the top, the rest of the system does not suffer a personnel change. In an unstable state, elections are not fair and the result is a change of personnel all along the line – department heads are changed, heads of official media organisations are changed, district police officers are replaced, and above all the qabza groups and commission agents that manipulate the sale of land and construction of plazas are replaced. Institutions are handed over to good-for-nothing courtiers, merit is derided and sychophancy rewarded.

Can anyone fail to see what Pakistan has become after six decades of a crusade against its people and their democratic rights?

Head on and on

The story of a man who, on his deathbed, summoned his sons and told each of them to break a faggot of sticks is as much a lesson on the importance of unity as the significance of the bundle versus each stick. Seen in these terms, our education system may as well be defined as a heap of scattered sticks. The name of every good institution is accompanied by the name of a person associated with it for long. This is done to the point where the individuals are glamorised and rated above the institution that makes them. The result: the impression that institutions cannot survive without these people.

Pakistan's most prominent higher education institutions, both public and private, have seen people serve as their head for more than a decade – be it Lahore College, Government College, Kinnaird College or Aitchison College. Likewise, in Sindh, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi University and Sindh Agriculture University have had VCs and principals for three to four terms. Peshawar's Engineering University and Balochistan's Mehran University are also a few other examples. All these institutions have another thing in common: their Vice Chancellors are appointed by the governors of the respective provinces.

The official process requires the ministry of education to publish an advert in the newspapers for the appointment of VC. This is done by a VC Search Committee which then scrutinises the applications. After thorough analyses and interviews of the short listed candidates three final names are forwarded to the governor who then makes the final appointments. Secretary education also acts as the secretary of the committee while all its members are PhDs with required experience. Governor is the technical head of all universities in the province. He represents the federation, but his position is titular, while day-to-day functions are performed by Vice Chancellor.

In England, the Chancellor could be a member of the House of Lords, a member of the local union, or an independent scholar appointed by the members of the university board. In Australia, universities have Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor, drawn from the business community or judiciary. Educationist Abbas Rashid says, "The governor has no business to be the chancellor of universities. Professional competence is required for this position. A governor has other responsibilities."

One school of thought sees no harm in people serving at these institutions for longer than their tenure. According to them, it ensures continuity of policies and is harmless as long as they are contributing. Ashfaq Ahmed, they argue, headed Urdu Science Board for twenty long years and his contributions are still acknowledged. The individuals, they believe, should be there as long as they keep the institution on the right track. Their stance exposes the dependence of the institution on the individual and the belief that the institution can work only as long as it has someone to 'make' it work.

Continuity of policies should not depend on individuals but the system needs to be made as such where individuals would not hamper this continuity. The person is working for the institution and not the other way round.

Aftab Afridi, President FAPUASA (Federation of All Pakistan Academic Staff Association) says that the appointments of VCs and principals depends on favouritism rather than academic excellence. Badar Somro, president of the Sindh chapter of FAPASA, feels strongly about the harm the 'retired officials' are doing to the institutions. "In Sindh, more than 86 people have PhD with required qualifications to head the institutions. People who are sticking to these institutions for years are infusing disappointment in these people. You cannot expect someone who is heading an institution for ten years to come up with a fresh perspective on things. It's like using 14th century methods in the 21st century. These people tend to become discriminatory and dictatorial."

Abbas Rashid says that the concept of head of an institution in Pakistan is that of a solitary authoritarian figure. The position of a VC, he says, means the person along with his colleagues. It is basically diffused leadership in which he obviously has the higher position.

Rashid believes that strengthening the educational institutions is synonymous with the strengthening of departments. "What we need to do is to make the departments strong and not individuals. An institution is nothing without its departments. The head of college or university should assume collective leadership. He should have the ability to discern which his colleagues have the capability to head the institution after himself. Then he should polish and train them. But before all that he should bring people to that level instead of stepping on their toes or controlling them. If your VC is a former general who has been there for years, who would want to come and work here?"

Abbas suggests that another way to counter the hegemony of the individuals on institutions is to distribute powers equally. You cannot justify the appointment of the principal or the VC on the basis that you want to counter violence on the campus. Create another post for the purpose.

It is a complex undertaking: Trying to take a position on whether the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is an individual or whether he represents an institution. It is complex because, like much else, there is a context.

But Iftikhar Chaudhry's may be a useful case study. Because the judiciary in this country has always acted as a unified institution, united for all the wrong reasons maybe.But it is useful as well. Because the judiciary in this country has always acted as a unified institution, united for all the wrong reasons maybe. Therefore Iftikhar Chaudhry's may be a useful case study.

While the legal community would have us believe that March 9, 2007, was a culmination of the struggle for the rule of law, the fact is that it was not. "A struggle on whose part?" is the logical first question. Even a cursory reading of the role of judiciary and contexualizing the case of the deposed chief justice would perhaps clarify matters a little better.

Historically, the judiciary has never made an effort to uphold constitutionalism. If anything, it weakened the cause of constitutionalism, not once or twice, but each time it was put to test. No doubt, it existed and functioned in a flawed political system where military institutions were pitched against civilian and the primacy of civilian institutions was not yet established. Incidentally, at a time of such institutional vacuum, it was left to the judiciary to decide this crucial issue and it chose to ignore the legal and constitutional norms to side with the executive as opposed to the legislative tiers of state and put its weight behind military rather than the civilian face of government. In Tameezuddin's case, it laid down the sham principle of the "doctrine of necessity". This conduct of judiciary did pave the way for the first coup de'tat. It was time now to validate the coup by another sham doctrine "revolutionary legality" in the famous Dosso case.

In the years that followed, the judiciary did not make much headway whenever there was a case of constitutional violation -- be it a military takeover or dissolution of legislature by the executive. Each time, the two doctrines were invoked with impunity, leaving the country to its present state. In doing so, the judiciary demolished politics and the institutions representing politics. Today, it is put at the mercy of these very political institutions which are now either too weak to restore its 'pristine' glory or not too happy with its conduct historically and believe it is their turn to pay back.

Certainly, the judges acted the way they did at the time of each political crisis for their own survival. For most part of our history, there weren't any dissenting voices or only negligible if at all. So survive they did. And it can be genuinely argued that at times when all other institutions had collapsed, the judiciary kept functioning even if as a result of the accommodations it made with the constitution. These were times when the legislatures were non-existent, political parties banned and media restricted. But we are living in times when it is important to judge and assess whether it was a good idea to have this one institution intact and functional; especially when it meant the weakening or collapse of other institutions including the constitution itself.

So, this is the context in which came March 9, 2007, and the Chief Justice's "no" to the de facto chief executive of the time. He decided to resort to the constitution, once again for his own survival. His conduct may have been under a shadow of doubt but the constitution did not provide for the chief executive who was the president who was also the chief of army staff (in uniform, remember) to oust him or ask him to resign, was his argument and he did make history. Iftikhar Chaudhry became one odd individual in an institution which had historically favoured the executive.

A no from the bench was taken up by the bar as a just cause, one worth fighting for, because the bar had a history of fighting for the rule of law and never ever being backed by the bench. A no from none other than the country's chief justice, followed by the ouster of a majority of judges from the superior courts and a new PCO united the bar like never before, culminating in what we now know as Lawyers' Movement.

But the bar claims itself to be apolitical while the reality out there is about politics, which has its limitations and, as said above, context. Besides, the lawyers claim to have launched the movement to save an institution. In all honesty, prior to March 9, 2007, the Chief Justice was not the most popular man even among the lawyer community. Outside the domain where his conduct was affecting the lawyers, he was trying to address the institutional collapse in the society at large, employing the immense powers invested in his institution, especially the suo motu powers. Remember this had been the only functional institution for the longest period.

Whether he should have stretched his powers to that extent or not is a question that is now being publicly debated. A debate has also been initiated on whether the law must provide a "meaningful context for politics" for the benefit of those who stand confused about the "legal versus political" question.

So even if we remain undecided about whether Iftikhar Chaudhry represents an individual or an institution, this stalemate must end and in a manner that the institution gets strengthened. Perhaps it would be a good idea to bring the CJP back and let him reclaim his seat to send this message that his dismissal was wrongful. Beyond that, it is extremely important to redress the issue of institutional excesses by initiating a system of checks and balances. For our benefit, it has already been decided by some wise people that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, about time the powers of the chief justice are diluted, about time the office of chief justice is turned into a tenure post, and all this done with a political consensus. The Charter of Democracy may be a good starting point.

The role of personal 'charisma' in building (or destroying) an institution is often debated in a discussion on non-governmental organisations (NGOs). 19th century German sociologist Max Weber identifies charismatic personalities as bearers of great social and cultural changes. On the flip side, though, charisma may lead to excesses of derangement and deviance. The test of a (charismatic) leader lies not only in his/her ability to create a single event or great movement, but also in their ability to leave a continuous impact on an institutional structure – to transform any given (institutional) setting by investing the regular, orderly offices or aspects of social organisations with some of their qualities and aura.

An institution, by design, involves individuals or groups of people who may be led by the single most capable and resourceful person within. Community-based organisations (CBOs) don't have to contend with leadership issues since they are about a few people banding together to find solutions to their (local) problems. The Orangi Pilot Project is one glorious example in recent past where the common katchi abadi dwellers came together, albeit at the neighbourhood level, to finance and manage facilities like sewerage, water supply, schools, clinics and security, where the government alone had not been of help.

The non-profit organisations (NPOs), on the other hand, call for leaders. Because their work involves grass-roots change and advocacy of rights, they need a person with leadership qualities. However, that person need not be the size of a national hero.

People like Asma Jehangir are charismatic and they have also acquired the reputation of being leaders who know exactly what to do for the society at large and how to get it done. But, there are unsung heroes who are working, far out of the limelight, in their own limited ways and without jeopardising their cause.

Mohammad Tahseen, Executive Director, South Asia Partnership Pakistan (SAP-PK), recalls how a young woman named Shaad Begum is working for Conflict Resolution in Bajaur Agency. "She doesn't have the high profile contacts and strong support system of, say, an Asma, but she is no less charismatic."

"In our societies, where institutions are very important, individuals also have a very important role to play," he adds, "Individuals have a vision and they can lead others."

Organisations such as Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) have evolved a democratic setup of electing their members. Others follow the system of merit, which means if a person is capable and has made a substantial contribution, s/he will be promoted to the top.

Muhammad Waseem, Executive Director, Interactive Resource Centre (IRC) says those organisations enjoy a greater credibility that have ensured a continuity. He quotes the example of WAF (Women Action Forum) that regularly shuffle their top people/directors. "The challenge is whether we can build a second-tier leadership, so that the ball keeps rolling."

Interestingly, most donors don't differentiate on the basis of individuals. They just follow a method in which a proposal is drafted and then sold to the donors. Once the viability of the proposal has been assessed, the donors are ready to allocate funds.

NGOs are not a permanent phenomenon. This means when the government starts performing its duty, the rationale of the NGOs will cease to exist. In civilised worlds, though, NGOs exist in the form of watchdogs like Amnesty International. Since their work is only to monitor government's performance, they don't need leaders with charisma but a set of rules only.

To quote Waseem, "Individuals should not become bigger than the institutions; this hampers their smooth functioning."

In our country, political parties revolve around one individual who is known as the chairperson or president or Quaid or supreme leader. The main leader then picks and chooses the office bearers of the party and also, in some cases, the supporters. Finally, you have got a new party.

It is true that a democratic political system depends on political parties for the selection of the cadre of people who will run the affairs of the government. But in such a system, parties are also organised democratically. They consist of citizens selected through a tough election process. The office bearers and even the members in different committees and bodies of a party are elected thus. This process ensures the upwardly organisation of parties from the grassroots at the local level, which is the natural and most accepted process, to form a true democratic institution. However, in Pakistan, such parties do not exist. The standard mechanism here is to form a party from top downwards, largely by appointing selected individuals to run the affairs of the party at different levels. The power to control the party rests with the leader who is the 'declared' head and selects a group of people who pledge allegiance to him.

The leader controls his party like an army general, through a chain of commands appointed directly by him/her. It is a set pattern in Pakistani political scene that legal heirs of top leaders are the natural successors - whether or not they are capable enough to run the affairs of the party.

In January 2008, after the selection of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as Benazir Bhutto's successor, Boston Globe writer H D S Greenway wrote, "There were lifted eyebrows in America when Pakistan's largest political party chose a 19-year-old Oxford student to be its leader. But then Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is only following in the footsteps of his murdered mother, Benazir Bhutto, who took over the party after its founder and her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged. The dynastic tradition is rife in South Asian politics. Parties are often seen as reflecting the will of one powerful personality whose successors view the party as their personal property. The pattern is familiar. The progenitor dominates the party and the faithful hope to find spiritual continuity with family heirs becoming political successors. Sometimes these dynasties find successors that are equal to the task. Sometimes not."

The situation is the same with all major political parties of Pakistan. PML-N is nothing without the Sharifs, ANP must count on the family of the Bacha Khan, Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf is also a one-man show, PML-Q depends largely on the Chaudhries of Gujrat, PML-F revolves around Pir Pagaro, and JUI-F is a family party for Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Many political analysts think that one important factor responsible for the failure of democracy in Pakistan is that it's most important institution, the political parties, does not follow the basic democratic process. "Individuals have not allowed political parties to become institutions in Pakistan since its inception in 1947," says Sohail Warriach, talking to TNS.

According to Sohail, after the death of Quaid-i-Azam, Liaquat Ali Khan and Muslim League became synonymous with each other. "All decisions related to the party and the country were taken by Khan, and those who dared to oppose him were deemed traitors."

Liaquat Ali Khan, adds Sohail, rendered the party and its cadre so ineffective that after his accidental death people like Muhammad Ali Bogra and Ghulam Muhammad Khan, who had no political credentials and were bureaucrats, became all-powerful.

"It was due to the decaying political system that Maj Gen Iskandar Mirza became the first elected president. He arranged a new political party - Republican Party - and an overwhelming majority of Muslim Leaguers joined him overnight. This decay in political institutions paved the way for Ayub Khan, the first military dictator."

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto barged on the political scene as an agent of change and people lapped up to him, hoping for an institution building under his rule. However, despite the many good steps he took, Bhutto did not try to develop his party as an institution. He did not allow a parallel leadership to grow in the party. And when his government was toppled by General Zia, there was no one from within the PPP who had enough mass appeal to be able to arrange successful protests for him.

"The case was almost the same with (the late) Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif both of whom were not ready to tolerate the people within party who dared to disagree with them on pettiest of issues."

Giving reasons for personalities being more powerful than the parties, Sohail says that in most third world countries, especially in South Asia, the sacrifices made by a few individuals or families seem to become more important than those by the masses. "That is why, a majority of people are not game for a non-Bhutto leader for PPP. Likewise for PML-N and ANP."

The political leadership of Pakistan is not loath to support this phenomenon. "Respecting certain families above the political parties has become a tradition in South Asia. The people have faith in these families because they delivered the goods and suffered huge losses for their (masses') betterment," says Senator Haji Muhammad Adil, Senior Vice President, ANP.

He does not agree that ANP is a dynastic party, "Our first president was Maulana Bashani. Then Wali Khan became the president twice. Sherbaz Mazari and Ajmal Khattak also remained the party president. And now Asfand Yar Wali is holding the office."

The senator was of the view that only one provincial president of ANP's NWFP chapter, Begum Nasim Wali, was from Wali Khan's family. "Bacha Khan's family members do not have the top slot of ANP on the basis of kinship but because they boast a strong political background. Wali Khan was sent to jail when he was only eight years old whereas Asfand's backbone was broken during Bhutto regime," he tells TNS.

Rasul Bakhsh Rais, Professor of Political Science at LUMS is not ready to buy the notion that these personalities or families are delivering the goods which is why they are controlling the party affairs. "In fact, it is in their vested interests to have a complete control on party affairs and they are not ready to consider the party as a public organisation."

He does not agree that the people in Pakistan support these families. "In our electoral process, two or three families in certain localised constituencies control the politics. They use parties as symbols while support is provided to them on the basis of caste, sect or baradri."

Usually, the failure of the democratic experience in Pakistan is explained with reference to the nature of civil-military relations, he says. "Civil-military relations can be a starting point in such a debate on democracy and authoritarian rule, but there is also the need to explain why political structures are weak and who keeps them as such.

"The answer lies in the undemocratic mindset of leaders who control the political parties and, through them, the electoral process."

According to him, the one point that is often debated but never understood is as to why and how families and oligarchs dominate political parties. In fact, they use the parties' names and social support base to enter the power corridors. "Unfortunately, they have a very low or no commitment to democracy because they fear losing to a new group of true public representatives."

Rais believes this approach of the political parties will be modified in time, with the continuation of democracy.