When are the polls?
In the backdrop of the tussle between the Supreme Court and the federal government, comes a direction from the judiciary challenging the provincial governments. A directive to all the provincial chief secretaries to present a schedule for holding local government elections after discussing the issue with their respective governments.
And, as opposed to the tussle with the federal government, which is not against the institution of the federal government but merely the party that runs it, this directive of the court’s is adversarial to the provincial tier institutionally. We just might see a rare show of unity by the governments, if not the people, of all four provinces.
The courts are right, of course. The local body elections embody the spirit of democracy and there should be an adequate explanation by the provincial governments as to why these are not being held. But the fact of the matter is that local government is a provincial subject. It is up to the provincial governments to decide how to go about the whole process.
There is much leeway that the provincial governments have. Not only can they decide the level of empowerment of the local governments, they can probably tweak around how to go about electing them. They could, theoretically, even come up with different frameworks to begin with if they really wanted.
To be fair, the courts would probably be fine with it if the provinces were to present a case, any case, instead of not taking up the issue at all. KP could plead worsening law and order. So could Balochistan. And, weakly, Sindh, with regards to Sindh Urban, much to the dismay of the party that would probably “sweep” the area. The Punjab would find it difficult to present a similar case.
With the monumental 18th Amendment, the provinces were empowered enough to satisfy the decentralists. Now the latter have to show a similar grace themselves. If they want to conduct elections, they, probably could find a way around all the hazardous factors impeding them.
It is in the interest of pro-people, pro-democracy political outfits to conduct local body polls. This gives the electorate an ownership of the political process, one that would, eventually, not take subsequent takeovers by, say, the military, lying down.
