Local bodies and delays

The politicians should stop foot-dragging on the matter and hold LB polls in fulfillment of their campaign promises.

Democracy, it is often said, works best when power is delegated to citizens at the grassroots level. With sufficient resources at their command, local communities can decide and implement development schemes and tackle civic matters through their elected representatives, leaving the higher tiers of government to focus on the bigger picture. Which is where the virtue of local governments lies. Unfortunately, the provincial governments in Pakistan — so goes the popular belief — do not want to cede power to the local representatives. What else explains the non-existence of local bodies (LB) in Balochistan nine months after the general elections? Balochistan, despite being the only province to hold the LB polls and win plaudits for it by one and all, has also not moved further towards consummating the exercise since the December 7 vote. To be fair to Balochistan, it gave an excellent account of itself by conducting the first leg of LB elections. But this exercise will obviously prove to be futile if the local governments are not put in place and start functioning. The vibes are not encouraging in this matter.

A report in this paper notes how the buck is being passed between the provincial government and the provincial election authority on who is to blame for the inordinate delay in the next phase of the exercise. In the third and second-last leg of the electoral drill, candidates were to be elected for the 33 per cent of the seats allocated for women and the 15 per cent allotted to various interest groups. Legislation also needed to be done before mayors and municipal, district and union councils could be installed. But things appear to be in a state of limbo, for now. If Balochistan succeeds in bringing the electoral process to its logical conclusion, it will have blazed a trail which will be difficult for other provinces to ignore. Both the provincial and electoral authorities need to work in tandem to remove irritants blocking the way of further progress in this connection. Likewise, the politicians holding reins of other provinces should also stop foot-dragging on the matter and hold the LB polls in fulfillment of their campaign promises.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2014.

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