Undemocratic conduct

Last week, in its detailed order on restoring local bodies in Punjab, the Supreme Court ruled that by dissolving local institutions in 2019, the provincial government had disenfranchised people who voted for their representatives. Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed, who authored the judgment, observed that the Punjab government’s actions conflicted with various provisions of the constitution regarding local governments and freedom of association.

The beauty of democracy lies in local governments, wherein people partake in participatory politics at the neighbourhood level and elect representatives who are easily reachable and empowered to improve services in their communities. Unfortunately, as far as Pakistan’s chequered political history is concerned, both voters and aspiring political leaders have largely been denied interacting with this third tier of government. It is regrettable that, while all political parties espouse empowering local bodies and aim to promote grassroots democracy, it is military governments which are remembered for practically doing so – never mind their own interest in creating a parallel power centre as a counterweight to the elected governments they depose. And herein lies the problem: while it is universally accepted that decentralisation of power improves governance, democratically-elected governments in the provinces and the centre, aided by an army of bureaucrats, feel that they have the most to lose to an empowered local government and thus resist the transfer of power. This is why, at present, not a single federating unit has a functioning local government.

In 2019, the tenures of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan local governments expired while the same was sent packing in Punjab by the provincial government after a new law cut short their tenure. The next year, terms of local governments in Sindh and Islamabad expired and there has been no substantial movement on any front since then either. While judicial interventions into the executive’s domain are questionable and unwelcome in most times, had it not been the Supreme Court’s dire warning in the first place, the last local bodies elections would not even have taken place. Must it take another Supreme Court deadline for the governments to act?

The present state of affairs is unfortunate despite repeated promises by Prime Minister Imran Khan – some dating back to 2011 when he was a rising opposition figure – to devolve power and conduct direct elections for mayors and even local police chiefs as is done in the West. However, this is not just a PTI problem as both the PML-N and PPP have not fared any better on this count. While the PML-N is now crying foul on the failure of the Punjab government to restore local bodies – an action which may be seen as contempt of court following the Supreme Court’s detailed ruling last week – it had itself resisted transferring resources and authority to its party members at the local level while ruling the province. Similarly, the PPP’s problem is that it has never been able to achieve a majority in Karachi’s local government setup and hence continues to use one pretext or the other for denying resources and resisting local government polls. In all this politicking and scheming, it is the citizens who suffer as they’re made to run from pillar to post for resolution of their most basic issues. If political parties want to preserve democracy, they must realise that lack of local governments creates an institutional vacuum which fuels an ‘anti-politics’ culture and erodes people’s trust in democracy, which in turn forces them to look elsewhere for resolution of their problems. In May 2019, the PM had said that his “government's number one priority is to hand over governance to the people” as all over the world, “local bodies govern on a grassroots level.” It’s about time he fulfills that promise.