It seems that politicians are not willing to hold local body
election in the country, the issue of local government elections has been
delayed for years with the pretext of one to another lame excuses. It is ironic
that Supreme Court of the country is pushing for the local body elections but
the politicians don’t seem in the mood to do so. Just to make sure that the
provincial governments of Sindh and Punjab
hold local government elections in time, the Supreme Court (SC) has given
another reminder to both the provinces to take it on a serious note.
This trend has to be changed that for every positive act,
someone has to push us with force to do it. We are, as a nation not learning
the lesson to fulfill our responsibilities. We are setting wrong trends; it is
the time politicians must show some seriousness for the devolution of power by
organizing the local body elections, which would provide the rights to the
common people to redress their grievances on their own. A mayor has stakes to
serve his people locally, because the he would understand the problems of
people in a better way and would try level best to solve them to get votes to
return to office. The court has sternly asked the ECP to complete its job in 45
days. Punjab government would take one more
week to pass the Punjab Local government Amendment bill but taking advantage
Sindh government has passed the Sindh Local Government Amendment Bill 2014. In
the case of Punjab and Sindh, completion of
the legislative process is the first step to organise local body elections. The
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is planning to organise local bodies
elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in three phases. The elections will be held in
last week of March 2015. Election Commission would start the process of
preparing voter lists next month. After which, the election schedule for KPK
would be announced in January next year. Around 120 million ballot papers and one
million nomination papers will be printed. It would be great that electronic
electoral system would be used in the election in KPK.
Although, Election Commission of Pakistan has requested the
court to give it five months to conduct local government elections in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa but court eliminated the request and ordered to ECP and also to the
provincial government to submit their progress report within a month. It is
mandatory for the provincial governments to conduct local government election,
article 140 directs it. Punitive actions can be taken against the provincial
governments if they would be found using the delaying tactics for not
fulfilling the constitutional requirement.
Considering the inefficiency of the politicians, it seems
that laws are made to be violated. Matter of local body elections is not an
exception. If there could have been genuine democratic tends implemented, the Supreme
Court would not have had to intervene to force the provinces to conduct local
bodies polls. It seems that taste of power is more delicious than respect for
the rule of law or the constitution; the courts were left with no option but to
intervene and force our prevaricating rulers to do the necessary acts they were
supposed to do. It is amazing that on the one hand, politicians keep defending
the democracy in the country for the progress of the nation but on the other
side they are not willing to give the rights to the people at the grass root
level by dissolving the right of power, which is the soul of true democracy.
Supreme Court has been intervening time and again but politicians seem not
willing to fulfill their responsibilities to the people whose votes have sent
them to parliament.
