Client-patron relation and cronyism.

More than seventy years into independence Pakistan continues to be bedeviled by major socioeconomic challenges, to its credit many have been overcome but not all problems have been resolved. The major threat of terrorism was effectively dealt with by the Pakistan Army and other law enforcement agencies (LEAs) at a huge cost in men and material; however some of the key problems remaining include: economic instability, water scarcity, lack of sustainable development projects; increasing unemployed youth population,

the lack of focus on human development projects, a continuous reduction in foreign exchange reserves, the increase in non-developmental expenditures, increase in public debt, the unequal distribution of wealth and the failure to effectively implement the local bodies system, which is considered the basis for democracy, etc. This has all been dwarfed by the Coronavirus threat and the impending economic disaster worldwide that is bound to affect us as countries go into lockdown effecting their economic adversely. Pakistan's woes have been aggravated by a handful very powerful and influential families that have been dominating the political scene since this nation has come into being common in all these families that was that they are wealthy, having rural landowners' background or have some tribal connections. These feudals have been joined over by industrialists who have become the new feudals, further strengthening our feudal society. The military rulers who took over from time to time were not averse to creating a political legacy of their own.

Client-patron politics, clientelism, patronage and clientage all convey the same meaning having been introduced by anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists. Clientelism has been defined in a variety of ways by scholars i.e. 'the relationship between inferior and superior in terms of material resources' or 'the relationship of give and take between the patron and the client' or 'the relationship between the politician and the voter based on mutual interest.' In the field of political science, clientelism can also be defined as, 'how political party leaders seek to turn public institutions and public resources to their own ends, and how favors of various kinds are exchanged for votes'. In such a background it should not be surprising that the client-patron relationship and cronyism remain very much alive in Pakistan at almost all levels of governance. If one looks at any of our...