ISLAMABAD – Apart from political interests and other obstacles that are forcing ruling parties in all the provinces not to conduct local government (LG) elections, the financial crunch in the Centre is now another reason blocking the way of LG polls in the next financial year.
The federal government has no fiscal space to conduct the elections at the cost of Rs 3 billion, as estimated by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh passed new local government bills to scrap the one introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf on January 8, January 25, February 3 and February 15, 2010, respectively, but since then, the provincial governments have been postponing holding LG elections on one pretext or another.
After the passage of the 18th Amendment, the local government system is purely a provincial subject, but conducting LG polls is the responsibility of the ECP. An ECP official said the commission had demanded Rs 3 billion for local government elections from the government in the financial year 2011-12. However, the cash-strapped federal government said the Ministry of Finance was not in a position to allocate the funds to the ECP.
“LG elections are unlikely to be held in the coming year, even if the provincial governments agree to hold them by setting aside their political differences,” he added. The PPP and PML-N, which have their governments in three provinces Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab, committed in the Charter of Democracy that “local bodies elections will be held within three months of the holding of general elections”.
After passing a new LG bill, the Sindh government has so far postponed elections five times. Since the passage of the Sindh Local Government Bill 2010, on January 8, 2010, the law has been amended five times due to differences between the PPP and the MQM. The case of the Punjab government is not much different, as the PML-N government has also delayed holding LG elections. The repeated delays to hold LG polls by Balochistan and KP governments have also been challenged in the Balochistan and Peshawar High Courts.
Danial Aziz, former NRB chairman, said the amendments being made by provincial governments in LG acts for delaying polls were illegal. “If the provincial governments get serious to hold LG elections, the financial crunch is no obstacle….. These are just lame excuses meant to serve political parties’ vested interests,” he added. Former Punjab law minister Raja Bashrat said the Punjab government had not only failed to hold LG elections, but also failed to amend Musharraf’s LG system despite tall claims.
