On with them!
The PTI chairman Imran Khan has reportedly asked his government in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to prepare for the local bodies elections. More power to him for that directive.
There is never a good time, really, for holding elections. There are law and order problems all the time. But we do go, thankfully, for the national and provincial polls and this fluency and periodicity should also apply to the third tier of governance. But, due to the fact that it is a provincial subject, and being open to greater interpretation, delays on it aren’t made a big deal of. They should be.
But elections should be fair and should be seen to be fair. For instance, Balochistan came out a surprising first on the local government election race. Given the insurgency in the province, it is clear that certain groups would have been excluded from the process. Similarly, the target killing of ANP leaders has resumed in KP now that the local bodies polls are near. The PTI government needs to realize that, even though it will try, it will find it hard to pass the buck for this. In the general polls, it could just look the other way while the party was being targeted. It can’t now.
The law and order situation in Sindh isn’t peachy either and the Punjab can turn problematic if all the catalysts are present.
So far, the greatest reluctance to the idea of local government has emerged from the Punjab government. It is said that the very idea runs counter to the chief minister’s penchant for keeping things under his control. It is, in fact, a habit of his that he has maintained, even at his own tier of government. Only at the fag-end of his last stint as CM, did he let go of a large number of portfolios. And even the ones he does not hold, he runs with an iron fist.
Since it is impossible for him to run them all, the bureaucracy has stepped in. The elected representatives have effectively been sidelined by the mandarins, who have the CM’s ear. Now, granted, the League has morphed into a populist juggernaut that attracts winning candidates and its sway over vast tracts within the Punjab is unquestionable. But the murmuring backbenchers in the house, or, for that matter, even the prominent representatives, are definitely seething over this lack of effective power. This could become a problem; if not now, then maybe later.
Devolving powers to the third tier is an elegant way of ensuring that doesn’t happen. That way, the CM can have his cake and eat it too. He could continue with his peculiar style of running the provincial government while letting all the tension within the ranks out through the pressure valve of the local government. Even in the selfish realpolitik sense of things, having local bodies elections makes sense.
To the polls, then.
