Pakistan: Can the local bodies deliver?

By Lal Khan

In a system that is starved of funds for developmental projects, to create another tier of scavengers will not bring any prosperity. These local elections would again be contested on similar monetary conditions as those of the parliamentary elections

As with numerous other political decisions of the present regime, the local bodies polls have ended up in a quagmire and, once again, judicial activism has jumped into the fray exposing the utter indecisiveness and failure of the political elite to resolve anything at all. In the last few years, the nation has witnessed the judiciary’s unprecedented interference in almost every sphere of the state and society. For a weak and belated ruling class, burdened with increasing economic, social and political crises, even the most basic and obvious decisions have become complicated and debilitating. The truth is, the ruling elite is at ease in allowing judicial activism to take over day-to-day executive decisions in the certainty that they will be delayed till posterity and eventually will fade out in the mass memory, and exited from the immediate agenda of the media.

It is not an accident that most of the local bodies elections in this country’s history were held under the military. This, in reality, is a hark back to 19th century colonial ideas of political tutelage in which the elite civil service forms the backbone of a system of governance that privileges administration over participation. From Ayub’s system of ‘basic democracy’ to other ingenious innovations of local governments by different military generals, local elections were for one particular purpose only: to bargain for some social base and legitimacy for their despotic rule at the grassroots level by rewarding a compliant political class. However, sooner rather than later, these local governments fail to satisfy mass needs and to stem the growing resentments, the threat of the masses invariably leads to the induction of tried and tested loyal politicians and technocrats into the government to maintain the fallacious shroud of a democratic set up.

The main reason behind the rulers’ indecision is that the funds allocated for ‘public spending’ are so meagre that the political structures themselves cannot fulfil the costs and the commissions under this system of contractors and subletting. In almost every area of the state’s activity and developmental projects, there is an army of multi-tiers of contractors going for these contracts to extract huge profits. With the aggravating financial dearth and exasperating lust for money, they can only behave like vultures and, in the process, have ended up becoming billionaires. The end product for the masses is hardly anything to talk about. This also explains the decaying and distraught social and physical infrastructure, and the extremely poor access of the masses to basic provisions of collective social life such as sanitation, water supply, streets and pavements, roads, electricity supply, healthcare facilities, schools and others. This is leakage of the channels of the funds allocated for these projects.

The other main reason is that the original budget spending on these provisions at the national and the provincial levels is already paltry but, with the passage of time, the first victim of financial cuts and diversion to other more ‘important’ sectors is developmental spending, which is more than often sought from imperialist financial institutions like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other western and Chinese governmental funding. This assistance comes with a heavy price in the form of exorbitant interest rates and other harsh and stringent conditions. The state bureaucracy, at all levels, and at different rates, extracts its booty from these funds in allocating contracts to the bidders who pay the highest bribes. The relationship between these officials and the contractors is one of the largest sources of corruption in the economy and society. From the top echelons of the ruling elite to the lowest rungs of the system, there is an ongoing haemorrhaging of the funds that are supposed to alleviate poverty and provide basic collective needs to the people.

With a democracy based on moneyed parliamentarianism, the members of the national and the provincial assemblies take charge of these projects and activities. One should not be surprised at this development; after all, it is an electoral system where one could only rise by investing heavily and does so in the belief that this is a business, and furthermore does so with a surety of rich and fast dividends. This leaves very little room for any transformative development in the social life of the urban and the rural areas. The reliance on administration as opposed to participation is the need of the day to reward their parliamentarian scavengers for whom this is nothing but a lucrative business.

In a system that is starved of funds for developmental projects, to create another tier of scavengers will not bring any prosperity. These local elections would again be contested on similar monetary conditions as those of the parliamentary elections albeit at a lower level, both financially and politically. However, the psychology and the aims of these grassroots representatives would not be any different. Their vested interests are intertwined with their sponsors. In a system of aggravating economic and financial crisis, the political structures, however democratic and transparent, cannot do much to end or improve the plight of the ordinary people. What most right-wing reformers are giving priority and importance to is the changes in the administrative structure. This is again concentrating on the form while ignoring the content of the problems and the immediate issues being borne by the vast majority of the populace. However, the problem with these politicians and intellectuals is that they have no alternative economic system to improvise and to carry out substantial development within society. This philosophy, in fact, is giving a political form to a social content.

The major economic resources of the country are usurped by the loot and plunder of the political and the military elite, and interest and debt servicing of the imperialist institutions and financial capital. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world while its ruling class is one of the richest. There are a few dozen people at the top who have more assets than the total GDP of the country. In fact, they can buy Pakistan several times over. No ruling class in history has given up its wealth, power and privileges voluntarily. So, the whole question of grassroots participation and local bodies effectiveness is intrinsically linked to the economic model on which these structures of governance are based. The oppressed masses can only play a social, political and economic role when they break their shackles and free themselves from this capitalist slavery. Only then can they form the collective councils (panchayats) or whatever they may be called. This is only possible in an egalitarian society when ownership of the wealth economy and resources are common ownership and control. In the present glaring economic disparity, there can never be political or social equality.