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Local Bodies elections

Very wisely, the Federal Government decided to put off the scheduled non-party Local Bodies Poll from February 7 to April 18. At the same time it was decided to hold the much awaited long delayed national census from March 2 to March 18. Keeping in mind both the immense increase in urban population and the time lag in demarcation and delineation of new constituencies thereof, the Government should have put the polls back by another couple of months. When we have waited so many years for effective local government, 60 to 90 days would hardly matter but the important thing would be to get it right. The country desperately needs good governance, particularly at the local level, and that can only be provided when representatives elected at the local level get involved and are (and can be held) accountable for their actions. At this time we follow the imperial concept of governance in vogue pre-independence 1947, except that governance in the hands of our administration officials has become a sorry model for system abuse.

One may well ask, why is this nation in serious trouble? The major reason, other than economics, is that the citizens do not find solutions to their immediate needs in the vicinity of the neighbourhoods where they live. The biggest problem is economic, a major part of the population pays no taxes (that would provide funds for system development and management) as they do not see any benefits accruing to them, at the same time there is no real revenue assessment and gathering at the local level. So instead of community development, individuals take to spending on themselves instead of earmarking a part of their income for the good of the neighbourhood. There is a general skepticism even among those who do pay their taxes since what they pay does not go towards civic and utilities infrastructure in their immediate vicinity. Whatever they do eventually manage to get, they have to beg for it. This is an impossible situation for the common man who sees a few-select affluent neighbourhoods in his/her vicinity having electricity, water, sewerage, roads, educational and health facilities, etc, while he or she remains in a 15th century syndrome, bereft of even the most basic form of such utilities and necessities of the 20th century. Naturally this sense of deprivation creates polarisation and social tensions, the most disturbing model being Karachi where anarchy became the order of the day till the principal perpetrators came across a rock called Nasirullah Babar. His success in putting down anarchy was not followed up by socio-economic initiatives by the Ms Benazir regime and as such the principal grounds for complaints voiced by Karachi’s populace remain. While there are elected representatives at the Provincial and National levels from the “deprived” areas, the more important issue of governance at the local level to address the peoples’ problems at their doorsteps and in their neighbourhood is criminally missing. One extremely bad fallout of Gen Babar’s success in putting down terrorists was the return of police high-handedness (and in a more vicious form), this highlights justice not being available to the citizens at their doorstep for their immediate needs, except for a price, and a hefty one at that. There has to be a direct link between the community and the local police station with a human resource division managed by locally elected officials to cater to the citizens’ routine problems. In this respect Project HIFAZAT, creation of model police stations was conceived at the instance of Mian Shahbaz Sharif in an innovative pragmatic manner. However even the powerful hands-on Chief Minister of Punjab was surprised at the adverse police reaction to the reforming of their domain and decided he had other priorities to manage rather than have a go-slow law enforcement agency.

If the Nawaz Sharif government can reform the system and make it simpler, we will be a long way towards true governance. Ayub Khan’s Basic Democracy system faulted in not having direct election for every post in the domain, including that of the President. In the present form of the elections, i.e. the first past the post is the winner and the winner takes everything, leaving a large part of the population virtually disenfranchised. The winner, with the meagre resources available to him or her, caters only to his own following, thereby effectively depriving the vast majority of civic and other facilities. If the voters group is in a minority in any constituency their vote hardly matters, voter apathy has meant less and less percentage of the population going out to the electoral box, thus negating the concept of democracy at the grassroots level. The disenfranchised voter must be brought out of the cold into the mainstream, the crux of unity and integrity lies in citizen participation in the community and up the tier into national development. A simple formula must ensure that almost every part of the population has some say in his or her local government and that the person elected will be accountable or at least can explain credibly at the local level reasons why a particular civic facility, utility is not available. Everything is presently laid at government’s doorstep and the government propaganda machinery cannot convince the common citizen the reason for his/her deprivation. In fact in Bangladesh the Upazila concept was a very potent exercise, unfortunately manipulated for political purposes it lost its fundamental credibility of government by the people, of the people and for the people. The announcement of the Mian Nawaz Sharif government that the Local Bodies election will be on non-party basis is very welcome.

For the Local Bodies election, the smallest constituencies (the UNION COUNCIL) in pure urban areas must not be more than 100,000 and in pure rural areas not more than 50,000. For areas which are partly urban-partly rural, there must not be more than 75,000 in a constituency. At least a 100 persons must propose each of the candidates. For the UNION COUNCIL the elections must be on a SLATE pattern i.e. the first 20 (or less) who get votes in order of priority must be elected to the COUNCIL provided the potential candidate gets at least 5% of the votes cast. A maximum of 20 people will conceivably form the UNION COUNCIL but THOSE ELECTED WILL REPRESENT ALMOST EVERYONE IN THAT CONSTITUENCY IN THE UNION COUNCIL. This provides for TOTAL DEMOCRACY and Mian Nawaz Sharif has the best opportunity in the world to change the destiny of the nation by this extremely simple expedient. This process will be opposed tooth and nail by vested interests that at the moment rule constituencies despite being a minority simply because even as a minority they are the majority faction in that constituency. All Local Bodies elections should have a follow-up run-off election to elect a Chairperson i.e. unless one person is so popular he or she has got more than 50% of the votes cast there has to be a run-off exercise to have a majority elect the Chairperson. In the run-off election the two persons who got the maximum votes in the first election should contest i.e. unless anyone does not want to contest and by default you pick the next person on the vote-priority list. In the same round of elections, we should have elections for the next tier also on a SLATE basis i.e. the District Administration, which should be a 20-member body, like a small cabinet. Only those should be eligible to contest in this election who have obtained the most votes in the first election in order of priority. The election must be on a slate pattern with the first 20 getting elected and the person obtaining the most votes automatically becoming the Administrator unless two-thirds of those elected vote him or her out of office, when the next vote-getter will automatically become Administrator and so on. Those competing for Union Chairperson in the same elections must have running mates from among the already elected Council members so that the candidate is elected to the higher District body, this person can become Chairperson of the Union Council.

In the first tier, we therefore have the UNION COUNCIL with its 10 to 20 elected members each of whom will then be put onto a one and two-member committees nominated by the Chairperson looking after law and order, justice, public health, communication, recreation, education, medical, civic facilities such as water, sewerage, electricity, waste disposal, etc in various permutations and combinations decided by the elected members themselves. Similarly in the second-tier, we have the District COUNCIL with its 20 elected members and the various sectors similarly allocated for being overseen by the elected representatives. The District Council will be directly under the elected Provincial Administration. The most important issue that can be settled by a simple amendment to the Local Bodies Ordinance in each Province is the fact of broad representation by all the people in the governance of the country at the grassroots level. In the process of economic development we have lost the aspect of community participation that is the basic ingredient for the unity of the nation, a non-complex simple formula for integrating and solidifying the foundations of this country. Since Mian Nawaz Sharif is genuinely interested in the amelioration of the miseries of the common man, this is the motorway that leads to the heart of the problem.

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