[Editor’s note]

Undeniably, the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 affected democratic governance around the world. Aasiya Riaz, Joint Director at PILDAT, explains that Pakistan, which has been increasingly identified as a “hybrid regime” has not been an exception. Prior to COVID-19, Pakistan has faced issues pertaining to elections, populism and partisan accountability, institutions acting beyond the constitutional domain, weak political parties, public distrust of politics, and poor democratic performance. To illustrate, Pakistan has created new structures under the administration of the military for pandemic response. While this has been helpful, this solution left grave implications for the relationship between the civil society and the military as it meant a larger role for military intervention in governance. The persistence of the “hybrid regime” has disclosed the weaknesses present in Pakistan’s democratic governance structure.

※The following is an excerpt from the article. For the full text, please check the attached file at the top of this page.

Introduction

Since thenovel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in China in December 2019, globally, it has caused the death of over 2 million people, infected many millions more, and compelled governments around the world to lock down their population. [1] Since December 2019, where on the one hand the pandemic has upended global life, global economy, national and global health systems, it has also affected democratic governance around the world and has forced many governments and systems to grapple with policies and actions that are feared to leave behind significant geopolitical wreckage.

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected democratic governance in Pakistan, an electoral democracy, which is continuously characterized as a “Hybrid Regime” in the Economist’s Democracy Index Regime, [2] owing to the role and influence of the military in politics and the ongoing concerns regarding the rule of law in Pakistan.

The Phenomenon of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Even though the first statement regarding the cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China was announced on January 8, 2020, it took the World Health Organization (WHO) over 8 weeks to declare the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic. This declaration was made on March 11, 2020, as more than 118,000 cases were detected in more than 110 countries and territories. By the end of May 2020, more than 5.5 million COVID-19 cases had been reported around the world.

Several leading studies from as early as May 2020 indicated that COVID-19 was undoing years of progress in curbing global poverty as the number of the poverty-stricken, which showed a pattern of a steady decrease earlier in the year, increased rapidly. [3] Studies stated that the pandemic started a human development crisis that was equivalent to levels of deprivation during the mid-1980s. The sectors that were affected were the following: income (with the largest contraction in economic activity since the Great Depression), health (directly causing a death toll of over 300,000 and indirectly leading potentially to an additional 6,000 child deaths every day from preventable causes over the next 6 months) and education (with effective out-of-school rates – meaning, accounting for the inability to access the internet – in primary education expected to drop to the levels of actual rates of the mid-1980s levels). [4]

Many countries have had to declare a state of emergency to protect public health. From March 2020 to May 2020, at least 62 countries and territories had to postpone national and subnational elections, out of which at least 18 countries and territories decided to postpone national elections and referendums. [5] In countries with weak democratic safeguards, there were concerns of autocrats using COVID-19 as an excuse to grab and hold onto power. [6] Through the utilization of political predictions, social scientists and analysts argued that the pandemic might disrupt national politics [7] leading to political instability, especially in developing countries already suffering from economic crises. [8] ■

[1] “Our coverage of the coronavirus,” The Economist, accessed June 10, 2021, https://www.economist.com/coronavirus-pandemic.

[2] “Global democracy has a very bad year,” The Economist, accessed April 28, 2021, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/02/global-democracy-has-a-very-bad-year.

[3] “Covid-19 is undoing years of progress in curbing global poverty,” The Economist, accessed May 28, 2020, https://www.economist.com/international/2020/05/23/covid-19-is-undoing-years-of-progress-in-curbing-global-poverty

[4] “COVID-19 and Human Development: Assessing the Crisis, Envisioning the Recovery,” United Nations Development Programme, accessed: May 28, 2020, http://hdr.undp.org/en/hdp-covid.

[5] “Global overview of COVID-19: Impact on elections,” International IDEA, accessed May 28, 2020,https://www.idea.int/news-media/multimedia-reports/global-overview-covid-19-impact-elections.

[6] “Would-be autocrats are using covid-19 as an excuse to grab more power,” The Economist, aaccessed May 28, 2020, https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/23/would-be-autocrats-are-using-covid-19-as-an-excuse-to-grab-more-power.

[7] Alice Wenner, “Our Democracy Depends on A Safe Election in November,” Fsi.stanford.edu, Stanford University, May 26, 2020, accessed May 28, 2020, https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/our-democracy-depends-safe-election-november.

[8] Nic Cheeseman, “The Coronavirus Could Topple Governments Around the World,” Foreignpolicy.com, Foreign Policy, March 31, 2020, accessed May 28, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/31/coronavirus-regime-change-could-topple-governments-around-the-world/.

■ Aasiya Riaz, Joint Director at PILDAT, leads PILDAT‘s projects and activities, a leading Pakistani think tank she co-founded in 2001. Ms. Riaz has over 20 years of experience in providing thought leadership in governance and public policy, managing global partnerships with national and international governments, parliaments and development agencies, and in facilitation of inter-governmental and inter-parliamentary dialogues, in designing and implementing successful strategic communication strategies and promoting strengthening of democratic governance and democratic and political institutions under the overall ambit of rule of law. Trained in the field of Media and Political Communication at the London School of Economics, UK, Aasiya has also worked with the mainstream press and electronic media in Pakistan as a political analyst. She was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, USA, as well as a distinguished fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Stanford University, USA. Aasiya regularly appears on national and international media for political analysis and commentaries while she is invited to lecture at Pakistan‘s premium public policy institutions as well as many national and international think tanks and universities.

• Typeset by Junghye Suh, Research Associate
    For inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 207) I jhush@eai.or.kr