LB polls

After endless delays, countless appeals to the Supreme Court and much prevaricating Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab have finally announced their schedules for holding local government elections. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa says it will be ready by May, Punjab by November and Sindh wants till March next year for local government elections. At this point one may be inclined to breathe a sigh of relief that the provinces are ready to commit to a date but it is an indictment of the political parties’ collective reluctance to allow for local representation that they still need so much time. More than a year and a half has passed since the Supreme Court ordered for local bodies elections to be held as soon as possible. In that time the provinces – other than Balochistan which admirably held its elections – have come up with one excuse after the other, starting with the need for time to print sufficient ballot papers to compiling voter lists and fights over the process of delimitation. If the provinces had spent that period preparing for the elections rather than arguing over them they would be ready to hold them by now. It may be better to be late than to never conduct the elections but that does not mean the parties should be excused for their delaying tactics.
None of the ruling parties have any incentive to hold local bodies elections. For the PPP it will mean giving over control of police appointments and other administrative duties to the MQM in Karachi. The PML-N and PTI, meanwhile, will be worried about losing ground in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, respectively, since neither party has demonstrated good governance during their period in power. Members of the provincial assemblies are also loath to give up power, including that of the purse, to local representatives. None of that should have mattered since local government elections are a constitutional requirement – even if that requirement is usually observed only in the breach. Now that the Election Commission of Pakistan has a permanent head and all the provinces have made a commitment no further delays can be tolerated. Delimitation will have to be carried out in a fair manner, with the ECP overseeing the process so that the usual attempts to maximise seats by the ruling parties is not allowed to occur. The lack of local governments has hurt governance throughout the country as it has thwarted any attempt to build democracy at the grassroots level. We will have to restart that process from the beginning and ensure it is never interrupted again.