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Abstract Political history of Pakistan reflects the least concern to institutionalize the political system for democratic stability. Centralized state structure with authoritarian tendencies, contesting political parties for power and imbalance civil-military relations have always threatened to thwart the cause of political stability. In this context, democratic dispensation to the elected representatives in 2008 which completed its five years tenure after the Government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, establishes a need to revisiting the political process in Pakistan to understand and evaluate the political development in terms of continues crises and its resilience. For the paper, analyzes Zardari era 2008-2013, as he is supposed to be a main functionary of that era.
Introduction Democratic regimes are considered fragile in developing countries, whether they were established as a result of decolonization with imperial legacy or come out of authoritarianism under military rule. Social scientists have recognized the problems of democracy in developing countries and have emphasized the political institutionalization for the stable political system. The politics of Pakistan reflects a history of conflicts, hampering the development of political system 1. Keith Callard's study marks the initial period of Pakistan's history as a period of change and uncertainty that paved the way for civil and military conflict of power 2. Ziring3 and Rizvi4 consider the weak political leadership and less organized and less integrated political parties as a main cause of political instability. These political trends indicate the weak democratic spirit and least commitment of politicians to institutionalize the system in Pakistan5.
Even after passing seventy years, Jaffrelot views the politics of Pakistan atypical in many respects. That does not fully comply with the criteria of democratic transition.6 Similarly Iftikhar H. Malik also defines this phenomena as continues disequilibrium between state and society and failure of Pakistani Government to establish good governance. 7 However, in the debate of weak institutionalization of political system, Saeed Shafqat 8considers army as a major challenge to sustainable democracy in Pakistan that has become a parallel state in the view of Mazhar Aziz9. Similarly Aqil Shah focuses that successful democratization requires a military committed to democratic norms 10. In view of these observations, this paper discusses the structure and functioning of the Government of Pakistan People's Party to assess the political development in Pakistan...