Step towards polls

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) took a big step towards holding the long-delayed local bodies polls as a select committee of the provincial assembly approved the Local Government (LG) Bill, 2013. The law was approved at the fifth meeting of the committee with a majority. It may be noted all the provinces have been under pressure from the Supreme Court to move on with the local bodies polling process and K-P has consistently stated at hearings that a new law on this would be put into place as swiftly as possible. That has now happened, with the Bill likely to be approved soon by the legislature.

Disagreements over the provisions of the new law had arisen earlier within the committee and some of these persist. On the whole, they do not appear to be significant. The most important among them is the setting up of village councils, rather than union councils, to which polling will be held on a non-party basis. To tehsil and district councils, voting will be on the basis of parties. While the PTI, the ruling party in the province, argues that smaller village or even neighbourhood councils would give voters greater access to representatives they elect, opposition parties argue that the uneven size of villages makes this an unfeasible idea. It also seeks polls involving parties at all levels. Other changes are relatively minor in nature, with the term of the nazim extended from three to four years and the wording of relevant clauses altered to include a woman as nazim, with the terms ‘he’ or ‘she’ inserted.

It is good news that we have a LG law in place. The loopholes or flaws that may exist within it will emerge only with time. K-P has taken an important step forward, even if consensus is to some degree missing. We must hope other provinces will also complete the process as quickly as possible, so that long-delayed LB polls can finally be held, completing an important segment in the democratic cycle.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2013.

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