Need for genuine local representation

Decentralisation of administration and devolution of political power is supposed to make governance more representative and responsive to the needs of ordinary people. While all this sounds great in principle, effective implementation remains a challenge.

It is ironic that three devolutionary experiments took place in Pakistan under military regimes and were criticised for trying to legitimise authoritarian regimes. However, a lot of resources have been spent on establishing local government structures, especially the last time around in 2000, with full backing of the international donor community. Despite repeated pleas, all current provincial governments decided to do away with the local government set-up established by the Musharraf government. No new local government elections have since been held by the democratically elected government. There are now indications that these elections may be held in the next six months.

The provincial governments have, meanwhile, passed new bills to amend prior local government legislations. These amendments include recommendations concerning the supervision of elections and the role of political parties in them, as well as alterations to the local government structures themselves. While it is still too early to go into their potential implications comprehensively, let us just focus on one issue, that of reserved seats.

Like the last time around, the amended local government bills aimed to give power to traditionally marginalised sections by allocating over a third of the local government seats for them. The current local government amendments still realise that district government seats need to be reserved for these marginalised categories.

The ongoing violence against women, attacks and discrimination against minorities and destitution of workers and peasants provides ample evidence for the pending need to empower these segments of society. However, there is little evidence of any lessons having been learnt from the previous local government experiment to make these aspirations a reality.

Last time around, many women’s seats remained uncontested, which conveniently enabled political parties to prop up candidates to indirectly exert their own influence. Many men used women from their household to fulfil personal aspirations and were commonly found to be attending local government sessions instead of them. Similarly, landlords and factory owners also found it easy to become elected representatives using the reserved seats for peasants and workers.

Existing labour and tenant movements and human rights groups, including leftist parties, women and minority groups, must now put their heads together and come up with eligibility criteria and demand its effective implementation to prevent these seats being captured by local elites least interested in changing the existing balance of power. Unless more genuine candidates are elected on reserved seats, it is unrealistic to expect that women or minorities will secure greater protection and empowerment, or that peasants and workers will raise a collective voice to obtain ownership rights for landless tenants and implementation of labour laws and rights.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2010.