pakistan’s

the local level. Provincial governments, jealous of the few powers available to them courtesy of the
central government, are naturally reluctant to delegate administrative and financial powers to local
government institutions in cities and rural areas. 9 Provincial government bureaucrats in district
administration, revenue, police, health, and education hate the very idea of working under the elected
representatives of the people in the metropolitan corporations, municipal committees, district
boards, and union councils. The federal government, meanwhile, prefers to deal with the provincial
government bureaucracy—headed mostly by officials from the Central Superior Services—rather
than with locally elected public representatives who cannot speak English as well as they do. 10
Not surprisingly, local government institutions have flourished only during military rule in
Pakistan. This was due to the strategic objective of military rulers to weaken and bypass national
political parties and create a base of popular support at the local levels, independent of national
politics. Thus, the elections of the local bodies during military rule have always been on a nonparty
basis. During President Musharraf’s rule (1999–2008), for instance, considerable administrative
powers and development functions were transferred to local bodies in both urban and rural areas.
The Office of Deputy Commissioner was subordinated to the elected chairman of the District
Council, known as nazim. Obviously, political parties, provincial governments, and civil servants
of the District Management Group were not happy with this arrangement, while members of the
National Assembly and provincial assemblies also felt let out of the spoils system. The elected
district councils, though, were quick to assert their authority and initiated development projects
on their own. Notwithstanding the political motives of the Musharraf government behind the
introduction of the new system, it marked the first time that the district-level bureaucracy was
made accountable to local elected members.
Following Musharraf’s departure in 2008, the PPP government let the previously elected
local government institutions elapse at the end of their term, as anticipated, and did not hold
fresh elections in any of the provinces. The provinces also showed little enthusiasm in reviving
the local bodies; instead, they appointed bureaucrats who were directly accountable to them
as administrators of the local government institutions. For both the federal and provincial
governments, local government resources—especially highly prized urban land, contracts for the
delivery of services, and appointments of hundreds of thousands of personnel in the education
and health sectors—became an attractive source of corruption and political bribes.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan intervened several times in 2014–15, asking the provincial
governments to hold local elections as soon as possible, but the provinces kept finding one pretext
or another to postpone them. 11 The Sindh government repeatedly amended local law depending on
the changing political relationships between the PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Finally,
the Baluchistan government took the initiative to hold local government elections in early 2015,
followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Punjab and Sindh governments started the first phase
of their elections in late October 2015. As anticipated, candidates of the ruling parties in each
province won by a landslide.
The absence of local government institutions for about a decade in Pakistan had consequences
not only for the devolution of administrative and political power to the grassroots level but also
9 Shahzada Irfan Ahmed, “Time for a Third Tier,” Daily Jang (Pakistan), July 28, 2013, http://jang.com.pk/thenews/Jul2013-weekly/nos-28-
07-2013/spr.htm#2.
10 Adnan Randhawa, “Consensus Against LGs,” Express Tribune, November 1, 2014.
11 Azam Khan, “Non-cooperative Provinces: In Sindh and Punjab, LG Polls Not in Sight,” Express Tribune, December 1, 2014.
MAPPING PAKISTAN’S POLITICAL SUPERSTRUCTURE u AHMAD
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