Anything to win
Winning is a good thing, but only so long as competition is fair. And sometimes you don’t have to bend or break the rules to ensure an unfair advantage, just a little fiddling here and there can do the job perfectly. A similar tweaking seems to be playing out with regard to minorities in the upcoming Punjab local government elections. Why, after all, would the Punjab government, through an ordinance promulgated by the governor (on Jul17), amend the Local Government Act 2013? Now, contrary to prior practice, instead of direct elections on all 12 seats in a union council, seven will be directly elected and there will be indirect elections for minorities, women, youth and peasants.
That, of course, is simply about numbers. Now all the government has to do is secure five direct seats in every union council to automatically win over reserved seats. Normally such tactics betray a sense of insecurity. Sitting governments do not usually have problems with local government elections. But the N league has noticed its influence slipping over the last few months. It gained a much needed shot in the arm with the judicial commission’s report, but it still has a long way to go in terms of impressing people with governance, and it has been uncomfortable with PTI’s ingress in its back yard since well before the general election.
Surely, it would have suited the defenders of democracy to be a little more democratic in their approach to elections. Not long ago they were apparently willing to bend over backwards to ‘save democracy’ in Pakistan. Now, they would blatantly ‘fiddle’ with core democratic norms just to ensure winning an election. Already it has drawn out the opposition. PPP is unhappy and PTI will, reportedly, go once more to the streets and consider going to the courts as well. Of course, when pressure mounts, the government will again posture as if defending the institution of democracy itself. And so the show will go on. It would be better for the ruling party’s reputation, and politics, if it lets elections go on fairly, without the discrimination brought about by the amendment.
