Devolution and its implications for democracy
The fact that a third consecutive government will soon complete its term in office is itself an accomplishment
The writer is a development anthropologist. He teaches at George Washington University
Given the current political turmoil and general elections around the corner, it is hard to predict who will be at the helm of state affairs next year. The fact that a third consecutive government will soon complete its term in office is itself an accomplishment. In addition to the current suspense surrounding who will manage to exert control on the federal government and provinces, there are other important issues related to the deepening of the democratic traditions, which also merit attention.
A populous and heterogenous country like ours needs several layers of local governments. Devolution can potentially not only make social service delivery more accessible and accountable, but also help address inter and intra provincial grievances. The idea of devolving power is not new for Pakistan. Local governments have been repeatedly created and disbanded in the country. We have however had lacklustre experience with devolving power under both its military regimes and authoritarian democratic governments. Our military governments have repeatedly created party-less local governments to legitimise themselves.
Since coming to power in 2008, democratically elected political parties in Pakistan took the important step of devolving power from the centre to the provinces via the 18th Amendment, but devolving power down further has not proven easy. The lack of political will to do that led to delays in formulating local government acts and holding local government elections. After repeated prompting by the Supreme Court local government elections were held in 2015 and it took another year for them to become functional.
While local government acts were formulated by their respective provincial assembles and political parties were also allowed to participate in local government elections, they are still struggling with lack of adequate authority, capacity and financial resources to fulfill their functions. All local governments are dominated by provincial governments, including those in K-P.
Some of the major problems plaguing local governments include the lack of adequate authority and insufficient opportunities to generate their own resources. The creation of multiple provincial authorities, for managing cattle markets, waste management and other functions, is taking away power from local governments. While the justification of creating separate authorities was to help improve service delivery, the outcomes are hardly impressive. Punjab has even created health and education authorities at the district level, to be headed by technocrats appointed by the provincial governments, which goes against the principle of localising delivery and management of these essential services.
The current local government acts have also adopted tokenistic attempts to empower marginalised communities. Most provinces have reserved seats for women, religious minorities, peasants/workers and the youth in local governments. However, candidates for the reserved seats have been selected, rather than being able to run for elections. Selecting representatives on reserved seats obliges them to follow the line of their party leaders and patrons, rather than being able to safeguard the interests of the communities they represent.
Ideally, effective local government representatives could enable political parties to deepen their reach. It would enable their MNAs and MPAs to use local government councillors affiliated with their parties to help win elections and address the concerns of local constituents more effectively. For this to happen, however, local government representatives need to be better empowered. Perhaps this is a lesson which provincial governments will learn in the lead up to the coming general elections.
The future of local governments does remain uncertain at present. If the political parties in power at the provincial level come into conflict with those controlling local governments after the general elections, the current devolutionary exercise could experience another setback. The current local government system certainly needs to be reformed.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2017.
A populous and heterogenous country like ours needs several layers of local governments. Devolution can potentially not only make social service delivery more accessible and accountable, but also help address inter and intra provincial grievances. The idea of devolving power is not new for Pakistan. Local governments have been repeatedly created and disbanded in the country. We have however had lacklustre experience with devolving power under both its military regimes and authoritarian democratic governments. Our military governments have repeatedly created party-less local governments to legitimise themselves.
Since coming to power in 2008, democratically elected political parties in Pakistan took the important step of devolving power from the centre to the provinces via the 18th Amendment, but devolving power down further has not proven easy. The lack of political will to do that led to delays in formulating local government acts and holding local government elections. After repeated prompting by the Supreme Court local government elections were held in 2015 and it took another year for them to become functional.
While local government acts were formulated by their respective provincial assembles and political parties were also allowed to participate in local government elections, they are still struggling with lack of adequate authority, capacity and financial resources to fulfill their functions. All local governments are dominated by provincial governments, including those in K-P.
Some of the major problems plaguing local governments include the lack of adequate authority and insufficient opportunities to generate their own resources. The creation of multiple provincial authorities, for managing cattle markets, waste management and other functions, is taking away power from local governments. While the justification of creating separate authorities was to help improve service delivery, the outcomes are hardly impressive. Punjab has even created health and education authorities at the district level, to be headed by technocrats appointed by the provincial governments, which goes against the principle of localising delivery and management of these essential services.
The current local government acts have also adopted tokenistic attempts to empower marginalised communities. Most provinces have reserved seats for women, religious minorities, peasants/workers and the youth in local governments. However, candidates for the reserved seats have been selected, rather than being able to run for elections. Selecting representatives on reserved seats obliges them to follow the line of their party leaders and patrons, rather than being able to safeguard the interests of the communities they represent.
Ideally, effective local government representatives could enable political parties to deepen their reach. It would enable their MNAs and MPAs to use local government councillors affiliated with their parties to help win elections and address the concerns of local constituents more effectively. For this to happen, however, local government representatives need to be better empowered. Perhaps this is a lesson which provincial governments will learn in the lead up to the coming general elections.
The future of local governments does remain uncertain at present. If the political parties in power at the provincial level come into conflict with those controlling local governments after the general elections, the current devolutionary exercise could experience another setback. The current local government system certainly needs to be reformed.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2017.