The writer is a barrister and columnist based in Lahore. He studied law at the London School of Economics.
He tweets @AsadRahim
Mr Cohen said, “It’s not an ironic song. It’s a song of deep intimacy and affirmation of the experiment of democracy in this country.”
Yet during the album release, the songwriter said he was “living through the riots and the earthquakes and the floods … and even for one as relentlessly occupied with himself as I am it is very hard to keep your mind on yourself when the place is burning down…”
So it is that democracy comes to our shores, amid quakes from above and killings down below: the pure kind, the grassroots kind, the Article 140A kind.
Or is it? Reads Article 140A (by the grace of Mr Rabbani and the 18th Amendment): “Each Province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments.”
As far as single sentences go, it’s terrific, and supported by the same gents it’s meant to filter out: the Class of ’85.
The year 1985 was politics without parties, people voting for the biggest Chaudhry around. Vision gave way to Jat and Arain biradris, ideology gave way to bridges and buildings, and agendas were left by the wayside (though not everyone forgot the Big Issues: the odd report mentions a young candidate called Syed Munawar Hasan running to “[promulgate] Islam”).
Sixty-six per cent of the National Assembly’s seats went to the landed, leaving the next biggest category — business types at 22 per cent — far behind. A new generation of waistcoats, far removed from Mr Bhutto’s Mao caps (or, for that matter, Maulana Maududi’s buttoned-down purists), formed the political class we know and love today.
But a quarter-century down the line, the 18th Amendment was meant to change all that. The Punjab and Sindh Local Government Acts echo each other in devolving zoning, land and spatial plans, as well as “by-laws governing land use, housing, markets, zoning, environment, roads, traffic, tax, infrastructure, and public utilities” to metropolitan and municipal corporations.
Local governments take care of, well, local governance; no more should citizens have to petition fat bureaucrats and lazy legislators to improve their area. That allows our lawmakers to focus on the law, and win votes for that very reason — statutory reforms over sewer drains.
But trends take time to undo, especially when a strong centre’s at stake. Balochistan took the lead with the LG polls, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) followed up with a violent mess, and Punjab and Sindh could no longer dilly-dally, courtesy the courts.
But is this what we were looking for?
Ever the Class of ’85, the centre tried its best to make the polls party-less, especially in Islamabad. That dream was defeated in the Punjab Cantonment Boards by the Lahore High Court, in an excellent decision by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.
The press, too, left much to be desired. Just a day before, mass media forgot the polls existed, in favour of a story that respectable journalists debased themselves covering. If a private matter is related neither to the morality nor the integrity of public office held, then that’s exactly where it should stay: private. That supporters then attacked the family lives of ruling party members, was about as disgusting.
As to the actual polls last week, ‘teething problems’ may be an understatement. Aspiring nazims were too often the sons or brothers or cousins of known names, which defeats the purpose of this grand exercise (though the genius of the people is worth weighing: the best-known relatives were beaten with wide margins).
Finally, FAFEN’s preliminary reports make for gloomy reading. In Punjab, “177 (71 per cent) of the 249 polling stations across 12 districts … reported various violations of the electoral procedures, including restrictions on independent observation of voting and counting processes, breach of secrecy of voting, canvassing inside polling stations, presence of security personnel inside polling stations and incidences of interference by security and election staff in the voting processes”.
And despite accreditation from the ECP, the report huffed that even FAFEN wasn’t allowed to monitor the voting and counting in some instances. These and other irregularities “[reflect the] weak capacity of the ECP to enforce election laws and procedures on Election Day”.
Meanwhile in Sindh, Asif Ali Zardari said the PPP was “alive and kicking” after 11 people were shot dead in Khairpur. Not the best choice of words, Mr Co-Chairperson.
As long as armed thugs are allowed to throw their weight around during the polls, people will die — 11 in Sindh, and nine in K-P.
But what to say of the ECP; just to critique it seems futile. The tussle between the commission and the provinces continues to play out: hard to forget the Judicial Commission report on 2013 — that elections were left “in large part … to the Provincial Election Commissioner to deal with”.
FAFEN has the same take. Under Article 140A, the ECP is “responsible for the conduct of the local government elections”. That led to a “chaotic situation, since a federal constitutional institution, which under Article 222, can only work under the laws provided by the Parliament” was made to work under provincial law instead.
Which meant a bonanza of “issues between the ECP and provincial government, dotted with interventions and directions by superior courts…”
The ECP knew this in 2013. The ECP will know this in 2018. But the honourable commission’s just too busy fighting fires. And so, perhaps, are the rest of us.
At least, that’s what Mr Cohen’s chorus points to: “Sail on, sail on/ O mighty ship of state/To the shores of need … /Through the squalls of hate. Sail on, sail on, sail on.”
Democracy is coming, if a step at a time.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2015.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ