Punjab LB elections

The fact that govt has not made efforts to hold LG polls speaks volumes about its interest in grassroots democracy

The Punjab government continues to move ahead with steps to hold local bodies elections. Punjab Local Government and Community Development (LGCD) Secretary Ahmad Javed Qazi has directed chief officers to start work on implementing the Punjab Local Government Act, 2019 to allow for a smooth transition from the previous defunct system to the new local governments once they are elected. A notification seems to prioritise a smooth financial transition. The Punjab Cabinet has already given its approval for the accounts of defunct local governments to remain operational until January 5, 2020, to give time for the bank accounts of the succeeding local governments to be opened.

Existing competent authorities from the previous district councils and municipal corporations are managing these accounts. These officers have also been made ‘transfer-proof’ to ensure there is no outside meddling ahead of the elections. These changes also tie into the new law’s goal of making local governments more financially independent. In fact, the PTI’s local government laws, while ambitious, seem intent on devolving real fiscal and administrative powers to the local level. While we wish them success, huge questions remain. The most significant, perhaps, is when will the elections even be held?

On May 3, all local governments in Punjab were dissolved through legislation passed by the Punjab Assembly. Balochistan’s LGs were gone even earlier — on January 27 — while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s were tenure ended on August 28. The fact that the government has not made concerted efforts to hold LG elections in any of these areas speaks volumes about its interest in grassroots democracy. It wasn’t until last week that Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar constituted a committee to determine the date for holding local government elections in the province. And while credit is due to the PTI for introducing a better governing law than the PML-N’s Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 — which even allowed unelected political cronies to become mayors — Prime Minister Imran Khan undercut some of this earlier this year by suggesting that his party wanted the new local government system to strengthen the PTI’s prospects in the next election.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2019.

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