The Sindh Local Government Act (SLGA) 2013 lacks transparency as well as a number of electoral provisions that are essential for credible elections, a report revealed on Friday.
The Local Election Framework Assessment for Sindh was unveiled by Improving Parliamentary Performance in Pakistan (IP3) and Democracy Reporting International (DRI) at Pearl Continental hotel. "The law does not respect the independence of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)," said IP3 senior elections expert Hassan Nasir Mirbahar, highlighting the key findings of the report.
He pointed out that previous local government laws had reserved 33 per cent of the seats for women, but SLGA slashes this number by more than half - there are now only about 11 per cent seats reserved for women at the union council level and 22 per cent at the district level.
The report also found that voter registration procedures were not defined in the law. Instead, the ECP could set up additional criteria for registration at its own discretion. The SLGA does not require the ECP to immediately publish election results at polling stations either.
"The SLGA has no provisions for publishing a full breakdown of election results or to allow full observation of elections by citizens," Mirbahar said.
"This law suffers from a lack of credibility," remarked Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Mehtab Akbar Rashdi. "The law should be made keeping the future in mind." She added that such findings were eye-openers for legislators and would support amendments if they were to come before the Sindh Assembly.
Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) Syed Sardar Ahmed declared that the state was incomplete without the local government system. "Not a single civilian government has held local government elections," he pointed out. "We have only witnessed these elections when non-civilian governments were in power."
Ahmed believed that the majority of the report's suggestions would be supportive in creating a better system and that organisations, such as IP3, should also study metropolitan corporations. "You need a government, a separate system, for Karachi," he added. "Karachi is not a mere district."
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's Samar Ali Khan said there was neither an electoral mechanism in the country nor true democracy. Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's Haji Shafi Muhammad Jamot urged for a census, saying that the elections were not as critical at this point. Pakistan Peoples Party's Syed Nasir Hussain Shah added that he did not think local government elections would be held in the near future. The majority of the lawmakers present said that the elections should be conducted in order to facilitate the provision of basic amenities, such as sewerage and road repairs, which they maintained were not the responsibility of legislators.
"All parties were taken into confidence when the law was being formulated," said women's development, social welfare and special education minister Rubina Saadat Qaimkhaini, defending the ruling party. "The bill was brought into the assembly and passed with the consensus of all the political parties."
Dr Ghulam Mustafa Suhag, deputy secretary of the provincial local government department, said that the process of delimitation and local government laws were developed because of the deadline given by the apex court. However, he maintained that Sindh had been the first to make the law.
Criticising the findings of the report, Suhag said that the researchers had not referred to the rules of SLGA 2013 and that the majority of their queries would have been answered if they had done so.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2014.
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