Towards local governance

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) is now in the second phase of instituting local governments (LG), holding by-elections for special and general seats of local councils, with the process expected to be completed by the first week of August. It is hoped that by the close of the year, these institutions will start functioning in all provinces. This will complete the cycle of instituting representative governance at the federal, provincial and local levels, meeting a key constitutional requirement. This is indeed a sign that there is now a clear sense of direction as far as taking democracy to the grass roots is concerned. The elected councillors, though representing political parties, are expected to function and dispense services above party lines and go beyond their political affiliations. This is going to remain both a political and moral challenge. There is also the issue of empowerment: how far will provincial governments go towards conceding administrative and financial space to these institutions?

Elections to local councils in Sindh and Punjab are also around the corner. The two provinces may have to go the extra mile to ensure credibility and fairness of the massive exercise, which may be marred by controversies and bitterness. The recent LG polls in K-P, for instance, left in their trail some key questions, which are yet to be answered both by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the provincial government. There were allegations of rigging and of blatant mismanagement, which marred an otherwise well-intended move. With the dust settling down, it is time now to closely reflect on these polls for some policy inferences. Regarding rigging allegations, one may say that the whole process amounted to a free-for-all exercise: wherever there was an opportunity for someone to flex their muscles, they did. To throw the entire blame on the doors of the party in power, however, is a bit unfair. The PTI on the whole suffered a significant fall in its popular vote from 45 per cent in the 2013 general elections to 30 per cent in the LG polls, while all other parties made appreciable gains, most significantly the ANP.

LG polls have always been a rather violent and bloody affair in Pakistan as at this level, the electoral process becomes highly factionalised and person-centric. Primordial instincts of caste, creed, tribe and biradri are so pronounced that it only requires a minor trigger for these layers to burst at the seams and take a violent form. The stance of the PTI leadership that the peaceful conduct of elections was the responsibility of the ECP does not hold ground as the overall responsibility for maintaining law and order is that of the provincial government. Most violent acts took place outside the precincts of polling stations, areas falling within the domain of the district police. Likewise, presiding officers drawn from the provincial government were entrusted with special magisterial powers, which they hardly exercised, even when the situation so demanded. Either they lacked in training or were just too laidback to realise their responsibilities. The relative aloofness of the police and its belated or sub-optimal response to various situations was distinctly visible. This could be attributable to the behavioral logjam in police forces around the country in the aftermath of the Model Town killings in Lahore. The police now tries to avoid taking steps that could be misconstrued both by the political leadership and a proactive media.

Another area of concern was the issue of time management, which was not clearly visualised by the ECP. A voter was required to cast seven votes within a short time. During the general election, during the same time period, voters were expected to cast only two votes. The polling staff was not adequately trained to handle such a huge responsibility. I have previously underlined the need to raise a permanent staff for election duties, whose members should be exposed to periodic intensive training exercises. Even with all the problems that the LG polls were plagued with, the K-P government still needs to be commended for taking an important first step. The province has been able to push the level of devolution down to the village and neighbourhood levels through the electoral process. This move by itself is a fairly challenging one as at this stage one cannot be sure of its success: this could either prove to be a catalyst of change or the entire structure may fall into redundancy if it is not given the requisite support. The charter assigned to the village and neighbourhood councils reveals that these are going to be dispute-resolution forums with a conciliatory framework at the local level. These forums will not only help promote local conciliation but also pave the way for an alternative to the time-consuming, costlier, formal judicial system. The village councils could also work as operational arms of the district councils and serve as the basic tier where planning and execution of community level schemes is done. The LG polls have enabled K-P to cross the first bar of electoral legitimacy by putting public representatives in place. The strength of the system, however, will lie in the government’s intent to enable these institutions to perform their core functions without any caveats.

It is a pity that Karachi, a huge metropolitan area, does not have a special dispensation and a resource base commensurate with its population and mounting problems. Instead, the Sindh government is relying on the municipal mode of governance. For a core municipal function of building control, for instance, it has a set-up that works under the provincial government. In Punjab, there is a strong move to take over some of the core municipal functions through corporate fiats. The law envisages setting up of education and health authorities, cattle market companies and now building control authorities, giving more powers to the provincial government, a move which is palpably in conflict with the preamble of the LG Act. Functions and activities of local councils should be in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as has been the practice in many parts of the world. This implies that problems of a local nature must be resolved at that very level and through elected representatives having the final word in decision-making. In case of glitches, governments should come forward to help these institutions rather than arrogate their core functions through administrative fiats. An LG system under the influence of an upper tier of governance is not the ideal one.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2015.

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