Daily Times

The holding of local bodies elections was quite an event. The fact that it was held after almost 10 years in the country was a milestone everybody thought was worth celebrating. The fact that it turned out to be a gigantic exercise of facilitating nearly 42,000 seats was also debatable. The fact that it was contested with a lot more zeal and noise than the general elections was also mentionable. The fact that lives were lost made it more controversial. The fact that every election turns out to be an election commission and political parties’ feud is normal. Despite all this, these elections are heralded as finally a victory for democracy and grassroots empowerment.

The fact that these elections have surprised many in terms of complexity and engagement is due to the fact that very few understand local bodies elections held in Pakistan. The previous two major exercises were carried out by dictators and were more designed to support their own power than power at the grassroots level. The other misconception that people have is that since local government is the third tier of government it is not as complex and important as the national and provincial elections; reality is to the contrary. Therefore, most problems of perception and practice have occurred because never before has an exercise so large and so grassroots been held in the country and thus the election commission, provincial government and political parties were all underprepared for the enormity of the scale, issues, involvement and reaction.

Some would say that Balochistan had already held them and we should have learned from its experience. However, the Balochistan experience was not really a comparable one. A total of 6,682 seats were contested compared to nearly 42,000 seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 2,332 candidates were elected unopposed in Balochistan and only 4,350 seats were contested in the local government elections held on December 7, 2013. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there were almost 84,000 candidates who were contesting these elections. The reason given for such low participation and interest in local bodies in Balochistan was that the Local Government Act was weak and vested powers in the hands of the province, while the Act in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa devolved power to the village council and mobilised people at all levels to participate. The Election Assessment Mission (EAM) by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) gathered information and undertook analysis in Balochistan of its compliance with Pakistan’s international law obligations to which the government of Pakistan has committed itself. Most of the reports done on these elections concluded that the legal framework gave excessive powers and discretion to the provincial government. Delimitation was completed late, information was not sufficiently publicly available and there were extreme inequalities of the vote. Returning officers lacked training and oversight by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and necessary election materials were not always available. Not enough electoral information was gathered and made public. No official result numbers were published. Furthermore, there was lack of scrutiny from the media, no observation by civil society and an unclear system of dispute resolution.

Factually speaking, the Balochistan elections were more about seat adjustment between the major parties than an open transparent tier-by-tier contest. According to reported ECP commentary in the media, a total of 22,274 nominations were accepted, with rejections reportedly primarily due to constituency mistakes. Approximately 20 percent of the candidates then withdrew, as local agreements were reached. In total, seven percent of seats had no candidates, 35 percent had only one candidate and, thus, elections only took place in 58 percent of wards. Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s elections were not just contested between parties but the fact that the second biggest winners were independent candidates is also an indicator of the trust of the people in the system that empowers people right to the village level. The major difference in the two elections is also the fact that, unlike Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided to allocate 30 percent of development funds to the local government with each village council getting two million rupees. Village councils will have not only money but authority to monitor and report that development has taken place or not. That is the reason these elections were fiercely and furiously contested. With no electoral reforms, an ECP not even capable of handling 800 plus seats in the general elections leaves aside 41,000 plus of local bodies, a provincial government underprepared for the cut throat competition from its own allies and political parties desperate to gain propaganda and grassroots advantage, historical elections became a predictable victim of mismanagement and political desperation.

However, anything of this scale and complexity done for the first time will always face problems and resistance. What we need to analyse is the lessons learnt and develop a road map of improvement. It would also be useful for media and civil society to do an analysis of the one and a half years of Balochistan’s local bodies and their impact of transferring power to the grassroots. So, if their elections were more manageable, have they really made a difference at the grassroots? So far, the impact has been invisible. In fact, the latest indicators on education and health in Balochistan,which should have been the major beneficiaries of the local government system, have shown deterioration and stagnation at the bottom of the list. Thus, there are three parts to making a local government successful: firstly, a local government bill and legislation that ensures transfer of power from federal and provincial levels to the local level. Secondly, holding an election that ensures free and fair participation of people and a mandate representing the real choice of the people. Thirdly, effective capacity building of the chosen representatives and a monitoring system that ensures local government effectiveness.

While Balochistan local bodies have not made their presence felt either in terms of legislation or elections, Khyber Pakhtunkwa distinguished itself by having the best legislation but needs to analyse all loopholes in the management of elections. However, to keep this important form of democracy alive it is imperative that all disputes of election irregularities should be resolved at the earliest. Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s government should make a comprehensive plan of capacity building for the newly elected councillors. This exercise will have to cover a wide array of skills both soft and technical as almost all the representatives will be exposed to this type of role for the first time in their lives. Training needs to have its own criteria of quality assurance as an untrained representative will be as lethal to local bodies as an untrained returning officer was to the elections. For democracy to take root and to ensure the implementation of local bodies’ elections in Punjab and Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s elections should become a great model to learn from and move ahead.

The writer is secretary information PTI Punjab, an analyst, a columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com