Salman Abid (Political analyst)
Provincial governments are the greatest hurdle towards constituting local governments. There will be no future for local governments till they get constitutional safeguards. Lawmakers want to carry out development work in their constituencies themselves. If they takeover that responsibility, what would the local governments do? The government needs to define the roles assigned to the provincial and local governments. Without constitutional cover, holding local government elections would just not be possible.
I A Rehman (Human rights activist)
The local government system was introduced in the subcontinent in the late 19th century. Yet it did not work well in Pakistan. This is because Pakistan has not evolved on the matter of local governments. Our concern was that the common man must benefit from effectiveness of democracy and this could only happen if LG elections were held and powers of government were given to the common man.”
Wajahat Masood (Political analyst)
Military dictatorships and other undemocratic alternates have been fond of local governments for different reasons; it allows them to create alternative political leaderships as against popular and electable political leaders. Also, local government allows dictatorships to have elected leadership, which aspires for legislative and policy making authority
Tahir Mehdi (Political commentator)
The Local Government Act 2013 of KP provides for party-based elections at the district and tehsil council level but has kept the local council (village and mohalla level) elections party-less. Now local councils cannot perform even their basic functions without the ‘blessings’ of the tehsil and district councils. They will have to pledge affiliation to the ruling parties to secure even small favours and that’s how the ruling parties will harvest the new crop of grass-roots leaders as its cadre
Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi (Former Chief Minister Punjab)
The incumbent Punjab government does not believe in the effectiveness of the local government system and in the devolution of authority to grassroot level. Soon after assuming charge in 2008 the Punjab government went about attacking local governments and froze their funds
Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo (PPP, Punjab President)
PML-N would never wish to go into local government elections considering its popularity among the masses, besides its legislators areusing the funds meant for the representatives of the district government.
Mobeen Chughtai (Political economist)
While the world moves onto more and more decentralisation of power our honorable chief minister for Punjab holds onto a number of important ministries. In such a case, if we continue to have faith in the benevolence of our rulers then the fault doesn’t lie with them. They are very competent at lining their pockets and protecting their interests. It is we who are fools.
–Compiled by: Hassan Naqvi
