Local bodies election in the capital

SC had earlier fixed the date for the elections on Sep 15 but government was unable to meet this deadline.

Islamabad was given the status of an independent district under the administrative control of the Punjab government on July 1, 1980. The city is divided into two parts, rural and urban, with a combined population of over 1.8 million and is called the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). The first local bodies election in the rural part were held in 1980 during the Zia era under the Capital Territory Local Government Ordinance, 1979. These were only confined to rural areas of the capital. But the system did not fulfill the needs of the people as the rural population still faces a lack of basic facilities, like shortage of water and gas supply.

Following the general elections in May, everybody is now eyeing the local bodies (LB) elections. The Supreme Court had earlier fixed the date for these for September 15, but sadly, the government was unable to meet this deadline. After much pressure from the media, civil society and other pressure groups, three provinces have announced the dates of the LB elections — December — with the exception of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The federal capital is one of the areas where the LB election will be held under the new system called the Metropolitan Corporation System (MCS), which already exists in Punjab. The interesting bit here is that the residents living in the urban areas of the capital will, for the first time, be beneficiaries of the LB system. The system is a good one, which reflects true representation of the people and that is exactly what the purpose of a democratic government is. Only then will burgeoning issues like availability of clean drinking water, etc. get resolved. So far, people have been expecting their representatives in the National Assembly to resolve these issues.

According to a draft of the MCS system, people will now elect their representatives through their respective wards, who will further elect a mayor and a deputy mayor for the city. I believe that the rural population will surely benefit from this system. The introduction of the LB system is a good omen and it is time to hold these elections to start the real transition of power from the top to the bottom. This is vital for a country like Pakistan, where politics of patronage and favouritism has crept into the social fabric.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2013.