If we had local governments

The Supreme Court of Pakistan in its order dated April 8, 2014 directed the federal and provincial governments to complete necessary legislation within five months to empower the ECP to carry out the delimitation process for holding local government elections.

The ECP, after getting the statutory power of delimitation, was to complete the demarcation of boundaries within 45 days and hold local bodies elections by November 2014. Now that we are approaching the deadline, the elections are nowhere in sight. The Supreme Court had also observed that LB elections were not held for nine years although Article 140A of the constitution clearly ordains the establishment of local governments.

As all the political parties, whether they belong to the old Pakistan or the ‘new’ one, want to stay clear of the ‘sin’ that goes by the term ‘devolution of power’, local governments are still a dream unfulfilled. Rhetoric and demagogy apart, our political leaders’ love for democracy is beyond any doubt only if it suits their personal parochial interests. Our political leaders can go to any extent if they really want to do something; but if they don’t want to do something, they are adept at dilly-dallying for a hundred years.

The constitutional command to hold local government elections is as sacred as that of holding general elections, but all the political bigwigs seem to have an unannounced accord against local governments. General elections must be held and any discontinuity will severely endanger their definition of ‘democracy’, but not holding local government elections – which may take away some of the state power along with development funds worth billions of rupees from their hands – is ok, nay, even preferable. Whether its Nawaz and Shahbaz or their chief critic Imran Khan, whether its Zardari or Asfandyar Wali – all of them like only that part of democracy that gets them top state posts.

Both Shahbaz Sharif and Qaim Ali Shah are in office for consecutive second terms. Imran Khan blasts them for not holding local government elections and has promised to hold local government elections within three months in office. Imran Khan’s junoon for democracy knows no bounds, but even his junoon diminishes very fast when the same democracy insists on ensuring some of its fruits to the underprivileged masses. In his recent super-hit show, he again undertook to hold local government elections in Karachi after coming into power, but did not talk about Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where he is already in power for the last fifteen months. The ANP remained in government there for a full term but local bodies elections never occurred to it. The same goes for Baluchistan.

After the May 2013 elections, all the ruling parties were under pressure to install local governments but all of them managed to circumvent it with absolute mastery. The Punjab, Sindh and KP governments started demarcations that suited their candidates, opposition parties knocked the doors of courts, and the whole process of local government polls got buried in court files; the mission was accomplished and all were happy. But the ‘hyperactive’ SC spoiled everything through its April 2014 judgement with a clear-cut road map for federal and provincial governments as well as the ECP to hold local bodies elections.

For democracy, non-existence of local governments for the last nine years is as severe a dent as it would have been if there were no general elections for the last nine years. Even Imran Khan, the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘new’ Pakistan has limited himself to issuing a statement on local government elections from time to time so as to innocently shift the blame either on the SC or the ECP. The question none of the leaders would like to answer is: why did their respective governments not pass the required legislations within five months as ordered by the SC? Why do they not want local governments established?

The possible reasons are as follows: One development funds for provinces are used by parties and provincial governments in only one city. For example, if local governments were in place, would there have been sufficient funds left for Lahore to build an expensive metro bus project? Again, if the metro bus projects in big cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan are built and run by the district governments as it happens all over the world, what performance would the Punjab CM and the PM have to show to the electorate for the next election’s campaign?

The PTI’s KP government has also taken a cue from others in not holding LB elections. On what basis, then, can it claim that it will perform the miracle of building the so-called ‘new’ Pakistan if Imran Khan somehow becomes the PM of Pakistan?

Two, it is not certain that the ruling party will be able to secure the coveted district nazim’s position in all the districts now under its direct control through a subservient and collusive bureaucracy. Sans district governments the CMs of the provinces are virtually as powerful as monarchs. If local government elections are held, these monarchs may lose control of some of the districts despite ‘best efforts’. As all the CMs are loyalists of the respective party heads who indirectly enjoy absolute power in the provinces, they are not interested in local governments.

Three, party heads and incumbent governments dole out a portion of the development funds originally meant for district governments to the MNAs and MPA as political bribes so as to maintain a strong hold on their respective parties and governments.

Four, without district governments it is pretty easy to misappropriate development funds. In local governments even a citizen of a union council knows how much development funds his local councillor has been allotted and it is not difficult for him to hold the local councillor accountable. On the other hand, when billons of rupees are spent by the CMs in collusion with bureaucrats, public scrutiny becomes minimal hence the chances of any accountability come down almost to zero.

Five, the CMs with the blessings of their party heads want to rule the districts directly through DCOs and DPOs while the love of bureaucracy for power and funds beggars any description; non-holding of local government elections becomes a shared interest. The party heads, through the CMs, use loyal bureaucrats to maintain control over parliamentarians in the districts. Bureaucrats feel more comfortable and autonomous in (mis)using power and funds – being directly answerable to the CMs who are based in distant provincial capitals than to have local politicians hanging over their heads.

This explains the consensus among all the political parties against local government elections. No wonder they have successfully made sure for the last nine years that there are no local governments in the country.

The writer is a lawyer.Email: aiddi11@gmail.com