Ironically, political parties are the stumbling block
It is ironic that the while the Local Bodies elections have been held regularly under military rulers, elected governments are generally averse to letting the grass root bodies share power with them. In the Charter of Democracy, the PPP and PML-N had committed themselves to strengthening the LB system through timely elections. The promise remains unfulfilled while their tenure is about to end within a few months.
The PPP and PML-N had different reasons to defer, and if possible to avoid, the LB elections. Left to itself the PPP might have conducted the LB polls in line with the 1979 system supported by its voters in the interior Sindh. The 2001 system introduced by Musharraf however suited the MQM as it provided full executive and financial powers to its Nazims in urban centers. While the MQM championed the creation of a Seraiki and a Hazara province it opposed tooth and nail any attempt restore the pre-1999 five districts of Karachi as demanded by the Sindhis. The MQM further demanded the handing over of the police and revenue departments to the city government to be able to run Karachi and Hyderabad independently of the rest of the province. While in Karachi on Sunday, President Zardari directed the PPP leaders from Sindh to sort out the differences, undertake legislation within two months and hold the LB polls before the general elections. Zardari and PPP have to decide whether it suits them to agree to the demands of interior Sindh or to those of the MQM. As the PPP generally takes the Sindhi speaking population for granted, there is a likelihood of its accepting most of the MQM demands. The insistence on the part of Zardari to contest the polls jointly with the coalition partners leaves him few options.
In the case of the PML-N, Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s penchant for running the province single-handedly with the assistance of bureaucracy stood in the way of holding the LB elections. How could a chief minister unwilling to share powers with his colleagues allow the empowerment of the ordinary people? The fear that majority of seats might go to the PPP and PTI also acted as a disincentive to hold the LB polls. It was on the prodding of the SC that the Punjab cabinet finalized the LB bill in May this year. The bill is yet to be put before the provincial assembly. The major drawback is that it proposes to hold the LB elections on non-party basis. It is widely understood that the 1985 non-party elections introduced a number of distortions in the system. Balochistan and Sindh have expressed readiness to hold the elections. The main stumbling blocks are the peculiar needs of those ruling the two major provinces.
