LG polls in K-P

It is hoped that delimitation will soon be followed by polls to village and neighbourhood councils

Finally, after a gap of nearly 10 months, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has hit the road leading to the local bodies’ election in the province. The provincial government has announced schedule for carrying out the delimitation process, starting from July 6. Last year too, the PTI government in the province had announced that the delimitation process would start in April 2020. But that did not happen. Better late than never, the government has now started fulfilling the prerequisites for holding elections to bring the lowest tier of the executive back into existence. The delimitation exercise will help in redrawing electoral boundaries of village and neighbourhood councils in view of changes in population and other factors. According to the K-P Election Commission, the process will be completed in three months by the middle of October.

The term of the last local governments in K-P had ended in August 2019. Before that, the provincial government had amended the local government law, claiming that the move was aimed at improving the functioning of village and neighbourhood councils. It said the changes in the local government system would enable the public to formulate their own developmental strategy by providing a more participatory approach. As part of the changes introduced by the provincial government, the ratio of village councils and neighbourhood councils in the province’s districts is 85 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. Peshawar, the provincial capital, has been divided into urban and rural tehsils.

Devolving powers to the local bodies in real terms has been among the many pledges made by Imran Khan. It is hoped that the delimitation process will soon be followed by elections to the village and neighbourhood councils, and the K-P’s new local bodies system will help resolve people’s problems at their doorsteps.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2020.

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