have to pass a law to give authenticity to the LG polls in cantonments,” says Khawaja Zaheer, Special Assistant to Prime Minister, who was also member of the committee that submitted its recommendations in change of cantonment laws in 2013.
The tale of how Musharraf deliberately kept the cantonments away from the LG polls while he trumpeted his LG system everywhere is too long a story to be narrated here. However, the brief facts are that in October 2002 Musharraf promulgated an ordinance about LG polls in Cantonments and in December 2002, days before coming of Mir Zafarullah Jamali’s government to power, Musharraf once again promulgated an ordinance about Cantonment laws thus making a confusion which ordinance to be accepted as none repealed others. So there were three laws enacted at the same time, i.e. Cantonment Board Laws 1924 and the two ordinances of 2002. The ordinances were vague and gave all powers to the uniformed officers in control of the cantonment board. By creating such ambiguity, Musharraf kept cantonments away from the LG polls.
Though the Election Commission is going to conduct local bodies election in cantonment boards after the presidential ordinance, the decision of Parliament to legislate cantonment laws will be vital because Musharraf’s 2002 ordinance gave a station commander, usually a brigadier, all financial and executive powers of a cantonment board being its president. How much powers of a station commander would be curtailed and how much power the real public representatives elected with the votes of people would get is yet to be known.
However, according to the 2002 Ordinance, the station commander of a cantonment board is also empowered to appoint an equal number of officers as members of the board as those who were elected by the people. By this power, it was the station commander who called the shots instead of the public representatives because he always had a majority in the board as they outnumbered the elected representatives.
The station commander also had the veto power over the board as per Musharraf’s 2002 ordinance.
Khawaja Zaheer, Special Assistant to Prime Minister, while discussing the subject, said that no elections have been conducted in cantonments since 2001, when the term of already elected representatives expired. He said that a proper legislation in this regard will have to be done through the parliament; otherwise, there will be no sanctity of the LG polls in cantonments which are being conducted upon orders of the apex court because the presidential ordinance will lapse after its natural life i.e. 120 days. He said that the cantonments impose taxes i.e. property tax and entertainment tax and there can be no tax without representation. He mentioned that the committee constituted by the PM to look into Musharraf’s ambiguous ordinance had submitted its recommendations and now it is upon Parliament, i.e. the National Assembly and the Senate (where PML-N) does not enjoy majority) to pass a law.