Political Maturity Not Weakness

By Amir Zia
The News On Sunday
October 7, 2012

The PPP-MQM duo will have to remain persistent and ride through the patchy waters to make the nascent local government system work

The minor stakeholders in the Sindh Assembly and small nationalist groups are all out to whip-up emotions and raise a storm over the swift approval of the local government bill on October 1 by the treasury benches. Only 13 members in the 168-member house opposed the bill, which was passed with a thumping two-third majority by the ruling Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and its key ally the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) more than three weeks after it was promulgated as an Ordinance.

Some political pundits predict that the new local government system would increase ethnic and political polarisation in an already troubled province where political assassinations, mob violence and rampant crime remain the order of the day, especially in the provincial capital of Karachi.

Others say that the opposition by the small political parties and fringe nationalist groups within and outside the assembly hardly pose a serious challenge to Sindh’s ruling coalition, which still has the support of more than 140 members in the provincial assembly despite the defection of its minor allies including the Awami National Party, the Pakistan Muslim League (F) and the National Peoples’ Party.

But the new system, christened as the Sindh People’s Local Government (SPLG) Act, 2012, has certainly triggered a heated debate and resulted in partial strikes and minor protests in parts of Sindh that is seen to have a potential to snowball into an explosive issue amid allegations by the nationalist and opposition parties — that it is aimed to divide the province.

This criticism, however, appears more emotional and political than going into the nitty-gritty of the new system, identifying its flaws and suggesting improvements.

Under the SPLG, out of 23 districts in Sindh, five urban centres — Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkar and Mirpurkhas — have been declared for the first time as Metropolitan Corporations, headed by mayors and deputy mayors. Earlier, Karachi used to be the only Metropolitan Corporation in Sindh. This reflects the growing urbanisation in Sindh and a right step to manage the challenges of major and secondary cities.

Under the new system, the remaining 18 districts of Sindh will be led by chairmen and their deputies, having same functions and administrative and financial powers as that of their urban counterparts.

By-and-large, the structure of the new system is akin to that of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf era’s local government, though fairly diluted in terms of certain powers.

The SPLG ensured that commissioners and deputy commissioners continue to hold central positions in the administrative structure, which they lost under Musharraf. In health, education and excise and taxation departments, the SPLG allowed only partial devolution, while the provincial minister continues to call shots when it comes to the overall revenue collection.

What has been retained from the old system is its overall spirit of giving representation to the elected representative at the unions, taluka, town, district and metropolitan bodies’ level.

The MQM managed to prevail in ensuring that Karachi be treated as one district comprising 18 towns and 178 union councils. It will bring more than 2,300 elected representatives to serve their respective constituencies with equal powers and financial resources. These representatives will come from different ethnic backgrounds and party affiliations, depending on the demography and political leanings of their voters, who will be able to hold them accountable in much more effective manner.

Overall in Sindh, there will be more than 10,000 such representatives addressing the day-to-day civic issues and infrastructure challenges, which in no way should fall under the ambit of provincial and national assembly legislatures, who have a different constitutional role to perform and practically remain beyond the reach of majority of the people.

The MQM wanted the PPP to revert back to the Musharraf-era system in totality. This demand was unacceptable to the PPP, which saw it infringing upon many powers of the provincial government.

The long stalemate over the issue remained the main bone of contention between these two major parties of Sindh straining their ties during the last two-and-a-half years. Neither side budged from its stated positions during the countless rounds of talks, but the alliance was saved from an imminent collapse following direct intervention from President Asif Ali Zardari and MQM leader Altaf Hussain. As a result, both sides conceded ground and introduced a local government system that has been prepared by the political parties under a democratic order. In the past, it was mostly the military rulers who pushed the local bodies system to fill in the vacuum of elected representatives at the provincial and federal level.

The give-and-take by the two biggest political parties of Sindh on local bodies system and developing a consensus should be seen as a healthy sign for the country’s frail democratic system.

The very fact that the PPP could have any bill passed by a simple majority with its 90 plus lawmakers in Sindh Assembly, but it chose to keep minority partner on board despite pressure from hardliners, underlines political maturity and not a weakness.

Similarly, the MQM leadership too faced demands from within the party to pull out of its uneasy relationship with the PPP, but its central leaders particularly Altaf Hussain managed to keep the partnership going.

This bodes well for the multi-ethnic province as an outright PPP-MQM clash would have aggravated the law and order problem, particularly in Karachi where the coalition government keeps a dismal track record in curbing crime and political-cum-criminal mafias, which have penetrated their own rank-and-file.

While these two major stakeholders of Sindh need to improve performance manifold when it comes to maintaining peace and rule of law in their domain, the very fact that they continued to share power is no small feat, given their apparent conflicting political and financial stakes in the province.

On principle, few can argue that huge urban centres like Karachi could be run without an effective local government system. No big city in the world has the concept of being administrated in the absence of a powerful mayor and local government system. The same remains true for other major urban centres of Sindh where effective local government system would help address the basic civic, development and infrastructure issues in a more efficient manner.

Even small towns and villages need local representatives who have a hands-on approach on these issues. This is how the system works in most democracies of the world. But here in Pakistan, it is unfortunate that for short-term tactical political advantages, local government system is being opposed by creating an issue out of non-issue and fanning conspiracy theories that the move is aimed at dividing the province.

The majority parties have every right to legislate, which is the true spirit of democracy. They can ignore or bring on board the smaller parties on any issue. It is their sweet will, but majority parties cannot be dictated by them.

In the rough, tough and mean world of Pakistani politics, games are seldom played by the books. Therefore, the PPP-MQM duo will have to remain persistent and ride through the patchy waters — at least in the short-run — to make their nascent local government system work.