In a number of months before the presidential and provincial elections, there was much debate on all the forms of media about the importance of polls and democratic practices in the country. Although much was said in favor of successful elections and about the importance of these elections for the future of democracy in the country, it still remains a point not much clear for majority of the public. No one dared to talk against the importance of democracy and the elections but for a common man, the ground realities carried more weight. They saw that millions of dollars were spent by the election body to hold these elections. In the same way, millions more were spent by the candidates in their election campaigns and dozens of lives were lost in the process. It was the occasion when Taliban threatened to carry out massive attacks in the country and the latest statistics issued by the Ministry of Interior and our security forces, large scale military operations were launched in the country against the militants to foil their plans and hundreds of Talibans and anti-state militants were either killed or captured from almost all parts of the country. Even with all these financial and physical losses, there were large numbers of people who did not vote just because that they were not happy of any of the candidates. They were of the view that all the candidates were in the power in past as well and they did nothing for the betterment of people and taking such a massive risk to bring them into power again for no good reason was absolutely irrational and meaningless. In such circumstances, the bombastic words of democracy, democratic organs of government, importance of polls and others carried no meaning for them.

This month is also the month of elections in the biggest democracy of the world, our neighboring country and loyal and old friend of Afghanistan; India. India deserves all the praise when they claim to be the biggest democracy of the world because managing such a big democracy is not easy in practice. It is the reason why, all the Indians feel extreme pride to be a part of ‘the biggest democracy of the world’. But Indian elections are at the same time most lengthy and laborious. Just like our politicians and candidates, the candidates in India are also blamed of corruption, poll-rigging and many other malpractices in the elections but eyes of the world are riveted on these elections. At the same time, all the experts on Indian and international media talk in favor of these elections, ignoring the drawbacks and shortcomings. Reaching to this maturity of democracy and managing the democracy on such a grand level is not easy but except for a brief time of emergency of 1975-77, the country has always safeguarded its status of being democratic.

These were the examples from the comparatively underdeveloped or developing countries but democracy is not a clean practice even in the developed countries of the world. A common American is not much happy of the system of politics being run by the two major parties of the country in the United States. Elections in the United States are the most expensive in the world and billions of dollars are spent both by the government for the arrangements and by the presidential candidates for their election campaigns. It is no more a secret that presidential candidates get these donations from the large multinational organizations of the country and what do these business organizations get in return? It is a general perception that these organizations have strong influence on the legislation in the Congress and the more an organization donates, more it gets the influence to mold the legislation in its favor. The enormous economic bail-out plan after the economic downfall of 2008 by the Bush administration could not comfort the common public too much but it definitely provided with billions of dollars for the banks, financial institutions and other business firms that had almost got bankrupt and it is also a sad reality that this economic disaster was also created by these business giants.

In the study of political science, there has never been agreement by the political scientists to accept democracy a perfect system of government. One of the famous descriptions of democracy is given by the example of a cart which is being pulled in two opposite directions by horses and in this way, no horse is able to make any kind of journey. On the other hand, there has never been a nation to prove that democracy is the perfect system of government and political scientists also agree on it that it would never happen in future as well. But keeping aside the viewpoints and theories of political scientists, democracy has shown its performance in the arena of politics but not in the books of theory. A mere look at the different countries in the world reveals that democratic countries are the richest, most advanced in terms of science and technology, having more social liberties that promote confidence in the general public and groom the artistic faculties of common public and are adaptable to the changing time exhibiting its tendency to tackle with the uncertainties of future.

In last few decades, the world underwent many changes in terms of political practices and now we are not able to divide the countries of the world into different blocs like socialists, capitalists, monarchs, military dictatorships and others. Almost all the countries are, more or less, democratic but this level of democracy also defines the present economic and social status of a country. Ranging from the purely democratic counties of the world to those where democracy is disrupted by military intervention and those where a nominal monarch tries to pressurize the democratic representatives and many others, the level of social welfare, social liberties, economic prosperity, scientific innovations and other factors of success of a country also vary.

The above discussion thus proves that democracy is the only system that can meet the modern day requirements of a country. If there are malpractices and shortcomings, it is not because of democracy but because of the evil intentions of those who try to find a hole in the system and utilize it for their own aims and objectives. Along with a number of other European countries of the world, two countries namely Norway and Sweden are considered to the most developed and public friendly countries of the world where people live their lives in the most ideal situations and the credit goes to their leaders who tried to implement and preserve democracy with its soul and body.

In our country and some other Islamic countries, some people talk about an Islamic system of government as well. With my limited knowledge in this regard, I am not in position to give any opinion but Islamic government is also a kind of government when the most pious people of the country select a person among themselves who acts as the Executive Head and this group works as the Executive body. This is also a kind of democracy because here is also present a criterion of selection and they are selected from among the public. There are many Islamic experts who are of the view that democracy and the Islamic system of government share so many things in common from which we got the idea of ‘Islamic democracy’ which is still in its initial stages and much research is needed in this regard.

But it must also be kept in mind that democracy is based on free will and thus no power in the world reserves the rights to attack on other nations to impose democracy. Democracy needs time to mature and free-will to grow and develop and these two necessary ingredients decide upon the fate of democracy in the long run.