Kanwar M Dilshad
WITH a view to removing legal hitch in the holding of long over due local government elections in the provinces, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) called for official publication of the results of Census 2017 before March 2021. Deputy Attorney General ensured ECP that the Federal Government is working for the official publication of the Census results.
Chief Election Commissioner is of the view the government should realise the sensitivity of the issue should be taken into consideration and the Federal Government should be issued official publication of the census results is made before first March, so that the Election Commission could fulfil its Constitutional and legal responsibilities with regard to the Local Government elections.
The Election Commission noted that through issuance of an ordinance, the structure of the Local Government system in Punjab has been significantly changed due to witch the delimitation work and all arrangements made by ECP so far has become redundant.
The roll back of Local Government elections is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. All political parties have an unenviable record when it’s comes to the execution of Article 140-A and Article 132 provision concerning local governments and the sharing of power with local representatives.
The present government is no exception. It’s unfortunate to see a party that promised to strengthen Local Government dragging its feet on its commitments since coming into power and delaying the holding of local elections. Its reticence has also been criticised by the Election Commission.
Two Supreme Court judges hearing the Local Government elections case made similarly pertinent observations concerning the premature dissolution of Local Government in Punjab by the present government and the inordinate delay in holding new elections as required by the Constitution.
According to Justice Qazi Faez Isa such an act is tantamount to killing democracy. This is unconstitutional and worse than dictatorship, he remarked, wondering would through away entire local government system if you don’t get favourable results tomorrow and an opposition party sweeps the elections. Justice Maqbool Baqar pointed out that the government is at war with its people.
The remarks of the learned, Judges under score the grass violation of Article 140-A of the constitution that binds provinces to establish local government systems and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local bodies.
When Punjab government dissolved the local governments in Punjab in early 2019, for example it’s introduced a new local government law, which its authors claimed aimed at ensuring meaningful devolution of political, administrative and financial authority down to gross roots level. Unfortunately, the new law was used only to roll back local democracy in the province instead of transferring the promised powers to the people elected at the lowest tier of government. This disregard for grass roots democracy must be censured.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has proposed conduct of coming local government elections across the country in three phases in view of the four time larger magnitude of the exercise as compared to general elections. As per Article 51 of constitution the delimitation of constituencies can’t be carried out on basis of provisional results of Census 2017.
—The writer is former Federal Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan and currently Chairman National Democratic Foundation.
