Abstract

Pakistan came into being through a democratic process. The elections of 1945-46 were held on the basis of separate electoral system which led towards the separation of sub-continent. But, since inception the democratic system in Pakistan faced many hurdles. The success of parliamentary democracy was limited because of continuous power struggle between elected and non-elected institutions, frequent dissolution of democratic governments and imbalance of powers between the institutions. Throughout the decade (1947- 58) institutions remained in conflict with each other in order to acquire power. In democracy institutions have to support each other in performing their functions which remained missing in this era. This article seeks the reasons due to which democracy remained instable in the said era. The emphasis of the study is upon uncovering the factors that created bottlenecks in the democratic process and premature dissolution of the governments. The focus is on working relationship between elected and non-elected institutions as well as functioning of the elected institutions.