The Election Commission’s latest warning to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and federal authorities should embarrass more than one office. Local government is the tier of democracy closest to citizens, yet it remains the easiest to postpone.
The ECP has already censured governments for unnecessarily delaying local polls and warned that creating hurdles may attract serious consequences. This is welcome, but it also raises an uncomfortable question: how many more warnings are needed before a constitutional obligation is treated as binding?
Islamabad offers the clearest indictment. The capital has been without an elected mayor since February 2021. In fact, since Islamabad became the federal capital in 1967, it has had only two elected mayors, both serving between 2015 and 2021. Around 2.5m residents now live under administrative arrangements while elections are delayed under one pretext after another. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s case is no less troubling. The tenure of local governments ended on March 15 this year. Under the KP Local Government Act, representatives serve a four-year term. Yet issues relating to maps, reserved-seat categories and notifications continue to slow the process. Frontier districts and newly created districts may require careful delimitation, but care is not the same as drift.
The deeper problem is political. Governments have rarely been enthusiastic about empowered local bodies because mayors, councils and village representatives dilute control over funds, appointments, contracts and development schemes. Local elections create rival centres of legitimacy. They make patronage less obedient.
There is an irony here that should not be missed. Pakistan’s most sustained experiment with local government in recent memory came not from elected civilian governments, but under General Pervez Musharraf’s devolution plan. That system had its own political motives and democratic distortions, and it was also used to bypass provincial political elites. Yet the uncomfortable fact remains that elected governments, which claim the stronger democratic mandate, have often shown far less appetite for local polls.
The Constitution is clear, though clarity has offered little protection (Article 140-A requires provinces to establish local government systems and Article 220 obliges executive authorities to assist the Election Commission).
All said and done, local elections are not a favour to political workers. A state that cannot hold timely elections for those who manage these everyday functions should not pretend that democracy begins only in assemblies. After all, local polls are the first test of whether power is willing to leave the capital and reach the citizen. *