Why do politicians hate local government?

Challenge contesting at local levels poses is emergence of new grassroots leadership.

An important omission in President Zaradari’s fifth address to parliament was any reference to the issue of local government. It seems that the prospect of an untruncated political tenure is not enough to extend the domain of democratic governance. The closer a representative government is to its voters, the better governance it delivers. Why is this simple jurisdictional principle lost on our politicians? This is something to seriously worry about.

All politics is said to be local. Politicians all over the world seek public funding for their constituencies to maximise their chances of re-election. The recent by-elections in the assemblies and the Senate elections provided a glaring example in our own case. Our politicians work assiduously to influence federal and provincial resource allocation towards their individual constituencies, but shy away from putting in place a viable and representative system of local governance. PPP, PML-N and ANP have all been on the same page to postpone local elections, under one pretext or the other.

Our military-dominated governance in the past has played an important role in shaping the peculiar attitudes of politicians. Without any exception, all usurpers of power used local governments as handmaidens to legitimise their own rule. Political parties were kept away even when these governments were elected and an adversarial relationship evolved in the process. In a seminar held by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan this week, Asma Jehangir, no fan of military rule, argued for “de-crippling” the state by restoring local governance. Political scientist Muhammad Waseem hit the nail on the head by counting local governments among the challenges faced by democracy in Pakistan. Economist Ali Cheema also pinpointed the lack of a functioning system of governance as the biggest challenge. In the 1950s, George Stigler, an American economist had struggled with the idea of optimal jurisdiction. In our case, the local level is best suited for delivery of basic services. At the same seminar, Daniyal Aziz warned that the failure to institute local governments could destabilise the system.

These are, however, voices in the wilderness. Our risk-averse politicians do not want local governments. Period. MNAs, senators and MPAs are not likely to give up the politics of thana kutchery and sarak nali any time soon. A large number of the present political class emerged from the local councils of the Ziaul Haq days. Who knows better than these political animals about the increasing returns of having command over state resources. At present, they control local resources in league with bureaucracy, in addition to resources at the federal and provincial levels. The district nazims of the Pervez Musharraf era controlled vast resources and an area that was, on average, as big as five national or ten provincial constituencies. An MNA or an MPA was no match for the nazim, in terms of power and influence. However, there are ways to overcome this political competition. An obvious one is to allow political parties to contest at local levels. But the challenges it will pose to the central leadership, in the shape of new grassroots leadership, will be too unpalatable.

While district politics is distasteful to politicians, the proposals to create new provinces have surprisingly met with weak political opposition. The reason is that they do not raise the spectre of local competition. To take the representative governance closer to the people and make it participatory for effective service delivery, the solution may be to allow the formation of as many provinces as are demanded.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 23^rd, 2012.