Panchayati raj, Pakistani style

The present experiment is the second major attempt at decentralising power here. The first was Ayub Khan’s ‘Basic Democracy’. When the Pervez Musharraf government introduced the ‘Local Government Plan 2000’ on August 14, 2000, it was intended to make citizens the primary targets of government policies. The elections to these bodies were completed by July 2001.

Today, for a population of 141 million, there are 6,458 new local governments. They were legalised through the Legal Framework Order of August 2002 because the 1973 Constitution makes the local government a provincial subject. The constitutional status of these local governments, therefore, is debatable.

The issues at the three-day meet had close similarity to the debate in India as well. The tension between the bureaucracy and elected local government representatives; corruption; the power of entrenched elites; the inadequate devolution of funds and the efforts of political leaders at the provincial level to run down local governments — are familiar to us in India.

There is also a widespread perception that the elites control the local governments. The new system does not allow political parties to participate in the electoral process and therefore there are no contests based on ideology. This makes it easier for the elites to capture seats.

For instance, according to a study by Farzana Bari of Quaid-e-Azam University, in the first phase of elections in 10 districts, 78.2 per cent seats and in the 4th and 5th phases in 22 districts, 55.7 per cent seats were captured by the elite-middle farmer, rich farmer, businessman, doctor/lawyer and other professionals. Therefore, does the devolution of power in Pakistan merely mean devolution of power from the national to the local elite?

Similarly, corruption at all levels is a matter of great concern. A working paper circulated at the conference had a quote from a long serving district management group officer: “Devolution is…opposed simply because it created such a huge disruption in the political economy of corruption”. How true this is of India as well! There is a concerted attempt in Pakistan to portray the new local governments as the villains of the piece. The prices of essential commodities have been registering rapid increases in Pakistan. Invariably, the new local government system is blamed for this. It is generally believed that the provincial level political leaders take advantage of the systemic problems in the economy. But the protagonists of local government vehemently deny that this is the case and claim that the system is being opposed only by those politicians who feel that their financial power is being curtailed. They believe that unless the new system roots out the prevailing culture of patronage, nothing will change.

Certainly, two years is a short time for an experiment of such far-reaching consequence to take root in a soil that is not very fertile. But there is certainly a sense of hope with the level of popular participation in this process quite high, averaging at 52.5 per cent. Several critical questions, however, remain unanswered. With the failure of land reforms and the hold of the landed gentry, tribal and religious leaders over society, how successful can Pakistan be in implementing the ideals of decentralised governance? Shandana Khan Mohmand, a scholar in Lahore University, forcefully argues that Pakistan’s local government system, based on representative decentralisation and not on participatory decentralisation, is weak and cannot achieve the desired goals.

How long will it take Pakistan to move to genuine participatory decentralisation? More importantly, why did the military government take such an extraordinary interest in creating local governments almost immediately after coming to power? Also, how can democracy work in a country under the overarching umbrella of the military? It is now up to the people of Pakistan to nurture this institution and silence the sceptics.

The writer is director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi