Imposition of Article 149 in Karachi

Recent moves by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) asking the federal government to evoke Article 149 have visibly ruffled political feathers, with claims by the Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) that this move is the sinister first step by the federation to wrestle Karachi away from Sindh. Conversely, others labelled this development as an MQM ploy to hurt the PPP. Underneath these politically-charged interpretations, however, remains a more substantive concern regarding the devolution of power in the country.

Devolution of power down to the grassroots level makes sense. It prevents over-centralisation, facilitates outreach and improves accountability. Pakistan has long toyed with the idea of devolving power. Ironically, it was military governments which often experimented with devolution, including those of Ayub Khan, Zia and then of Musharraf. They did so in a bid to gain political legitimacy and simultaneously bypass political parties by holding party-less local body elections.

The passage of the 18th Amendment back in 2010 was hailed as a milestone in terms of achieving more genuine devolution. This amendment did enable significant power to be devolved from the federal level to the provinces. Ironically, however, the provincial governments under a democratic set-up also remained very reluctant to devolve down further to the level of districts and beyond. It took nearly six years for local government elections to be held across the provinces. Even though this was the first time that local elections were held along party lines, the chief ministers of all provinces preferred to keep power in their own hands, rather than pass it down to the elected district representatives or beyond.

The local government structure in K-P was more extensive than the one created by other provinces, but K-P’s local governments also remained firmly controlled by its chief minister. Moreover, when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government won general elections last year, it became reluctant to let local governments function in Punjab and Sindh, where the PML-N and the PPP dominated the local bodies. In the case of Punjab, the PTI paused the current local government system by repealing the law based on which local governments were created under the Shehbaz Sharif government. Earlier this year, the PTI introduced a new act, which is similar in design to K-P’s local government legislation.

It is in this broader context that the current debate surrounding the evocation of Article 149 for Karachi needs to be understood. Article 149 enables the Federation to assume administrative control of any part of the country. The Mayor of Karachi, who belongs to the MQM, has thus evoked that article not only out of sincere desire to improve the lives of ordinary citizens of our largest metropolis but also to wrestle Karachi out of the grip of the PPP’s provincial government.

If the actual desire was to improve conditions in Karachi, the implementation of Article 140(A) would have proven more useful as it requires each province to devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of local governments. However, the PTI is not interested in implementing Article 140(A) until it can dominate the local government system across the country, especially in Punjab.

The federal law minister claimed that the enforcement of Article 149 of the Constitution allows local governments who feel the provincial government is not facilitating them, to evoke help from the federal government. Yet, it would be unlikely to see the PTI being as accommodating if, let’s say, a PML (N)-nominated mayor of Lahore or even those of less important districts around the country were to have made a similar plea for federal assistance.

The federal attempt to involve itself in a campaign to clean up Karachi may have also prompted the CM of the province to finally take some action as well, but the political implications of this manoeuver can cause a backlash against the PTI. This federal assertion will also complicate the task of deepening devolution and decentralisation of power across the country as the country approaches another round of local government elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2019.

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