Daily Times

The common understanding is that local government level democracy is only needed for better and effective local governance and delivery of services. However, actually, a credible institutionalization of local level democracy can strengthen the overall democratic project in the country. This article refers to some literature both on democracy in general and also the local level democracy (Shafqat 1998; Cheema et al. nd) to illustrate the discussion.

There is a strong passion for democracy despite the social structures that are saturated by ethnic, class, gender, and such other divisions; and authoritarianism prevalent in the state and society structures. In this regard, it might be worth considering the issues of the supremacy of the political and elected class; electoral competition; an analysis of political leadership’s behaviour patterns; and development of political parties as an institution.

In some sense while practicing democracy, most stakeholders tend to overlook the real spirit behind this system of checks and balances. According to Shafqat (1998), “democracy is a system of governance and interest representation in which supremacy of laws and procedures is a prerequisite. That the political leadership, elites and powerful interest groups need to strive, not only to uphold the rule of law, but also demonstrate respect for these and seek observance and compliance from a wider segment of citizens”. This spirit behind the democratic dispensation is often overlooked.

The focus of the process of election of local government should be oriented from bottom to top and voters’ oriented rather than top-to-bottom nomination of candidates by the higher echelon of political parties provincial leadership

In some sense, the literature cited above provides the much-needed focus on the role of elite in promoting democracy. Elite consensus, as also referred to some other literature as well, is much needed to ensure rules-based democratic dispensation. The political and other elite have an impact to influence norms that permeate to the popular level. Shafqat (1998) is critical of the role of the elite, particularly the political elite and states, “Despite making struggle for the restoration of democracy, they have failed to build a legal framework, create a pro-democracy environment, and most importantly, develop a policy framework in which conflicts may be resolved through negotiations, by making bargains, and by building consensus. Democracy cannot grow and function in the absence of elite consensus”. Political leaders can also show authoritarian tendencies upon assuming power. Similarly, political interference in the administrative governance has increased, and so has the demand for decentralization and devolution of power.

There is an intrinsic relationship between pursing politics at the national and local levels. However, according to Cheema and co-authors, institutionalization of empowered local governments has not been easy in Pakistan for a number of reasons. It is true that non-representative regimes have perpetuated the decentralization to the local level to often bypass the national, and particularly the provincial political tier. However, at the same time, the political leadership has also often left a vacuum at the local level, and did not strengthen the local governments due to lack of institutionalization of political parties’ structures at the local level. This vacuum at the local level has often been exploited by those who would want to undermine the political leadership and the overall democratic project.

The main problem is that national and provincial level political leadership seems to be competing with the elected local level officials in the pursuit of patronage and power. It is difficult to get a breakthrough in the national and provincial political contest, when the local level leadership does not graduate from the lowest tier of politics to the highest. Cheema and co-authors further illustrate, “The structure of political parties has been affected by their disjunction from democratic local government. Political parties in Pakistan are highly centralized, and their national and provincial leadership retains considerable control with regard to the nominations of legislative candidates and strategic decision-making. Their organizational structure does not reach broadly down to the local grassroots level”.

The union council level tier of the local government is the most representative and effective in terms of reaching out to people at the grassroots level. However, nazims and naib-nazims of even this most elementary local government tier were part of a higher-level tier of the local government; and it introduced an element of hierarchy at the union council level, despite them being directly elected (for other tiers of the local government, nazims are indirectly elected).

The literature recommends introducing a proportional representation system to elect local councils in the local elections that provides a choice to voters to elect their candidates from the various lists of panels of candidates of political parties. Any political party that has some representation in the national or provincial assembly should be able to introduce its panel of candidates for the local government election. In this manner, the political parties’ panel candidates will be selected for the local council in proportion to the number of votes they receive in the local government elections.

There is also the recommendation to empower the voters to select the local government members and to enable them to assign the ‘approval rating’ for every candidate, rather than the political parties provincial leadership to cherry-pick the local government leadership. In other words, the focus of the process of election of local government should be oriented from bottom to top and voters’ oriented rather than top-to-bottom nomination of candidates by the higher echelon of political parties provincial leadership.

Similarly, at the district level, voters should be enabled to elect some ‘at-large district councilors’ using the ‘open-list system’ of ‘approval-voting’, in addition to the district council members that are elected in the prevalent system. Local councils should also be allowed to choose their nazim or executive mayor themselves as it would make them more accountable to a larger group of local level political cadre, starting from the lowest tier to the highest tier of local government.

The writer is an Islamabad-based social scientist