After five years of empty promises, the current government is still refusing to act on reforms for Fata. Even though the federal cabinet approved the reforms package on Thursday, it still did not table the reforms during the National Assembly session on Friday. Two of the few remaining allies the PML-N has left – JUI-F and PkMAP – are opposed to the merger. Both parties wrongly claim that there is little support for the merger within Fata. The JUI-F has even claimed that the reforms are part of a global conspiracy against Fata. The real reason for the parties’ disapproval of the merger is that they know they have a negligible voting base in Fata and so their share of influence in an expanded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly would be diluted. All opposition parties, including the PTI and the PPP, are in favour of the merger and it is hoped that the next government will finally implement it, no matter which party heads the government. The stated reason for punting the issue to the next government is that it will leave the Election Commission of Pakistan only about two weeks to carry out the delimitation of electoral boundaries in the new-look province. While that may be true, the only reason the government is stuck for time is because it has been trying to run out of the clock on Fata reforms since day one.
It is to the PML-N’s slight credit that it has at least brought Fata under the jurisdiction of the regular court system. At the same time, its original Fata reforms leave a lot to be desired. The reforms still preserved the cruel and archaic Frontier Crimes Regulation for at least five more years. The government also didn’t tackle the issue of how the federal divisible pool would have to be recalculated to account for a merger of Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The government can also be blamed for not taking swift action to restore normalcy in Fata after years of warfare. The people of Fata have a right to be aggrieved. After all these years they are still being treated like second-class citizens in their own country. This government has let Fata down but the next government must do better. Not only must Fata be merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, there needs to be an immediate repeal of the FCR. Fata also deserves more than the Rs100 billion that has been allocated to it by the National Finance Commission. After all the suffering its people have been through, including having their homes destroyed and living as refugees within their own country, it is finally time to treat the people of Fata as equal citizens of Pakistan.