ISLAMABAD, Jan 27: The decision to reduce the number of union council seats reflects the government's clear intention to use both the electoral process and the structure as a political tool.
This was stated by People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) MNA and President of the party's Central Policy Planning Sherry Rehman in a statement here on Thursday. She said the plan to reduce the total number of UC seats from 21 to 13 would be a severe blow to women, labourers, peasants and minorities as it would translate into a huge cut in their representation at the local level.
"If these anti-people reforms go through, local institutions will revert back to a process of control by traditional tribal and clerical forces," she said. She said the reasons for this quite cutting back of local representation was obvious.
"After a few years of chaotic district government where only a handful of councillors understood their role or responsibilities, many who had come in for the first time, particularly on reserved seats, were posing a threat to the local establishment through a shift in their articulated interests."
The first sign of democratic organization by these marginalized groups at a local level has challenged the entrenched interests and elites who are finding it increasingly difficult to manipulate a class that is beginning to slowly articulate its needs and demand its entitlements.
Groups of women and labour networks have been indicating their intention to contest the next local bodies polls on an organized party- affiliation standard which gives them political protection even if the regime insists on non-party polls.
The total number of union councillors will go down from 114,418 to 66,220. Peasant and labour seats will be reduced from 24,088 to 12,044, while minorities who have one reserved seat in every UC may be deprived of representation altogether in most constituencies.
Women councillors who have been undergoing training from political parties as well as NGOs and are now asking for an end to tribal justice, remuneration for their offices, pose a challenge to the male-domination of the district assemblies.
Political activists, NGOs and unions have calculated that only on the women's seats, the cut will bring down their representation from 36,132 to 18,066.
"Local elites who have been lobbying against the erosion of their powers by these councillors have been given more concessions by the government through its promise to curtail the numbers that form the electoral college for the seat of district nazim."
For a district of 100 UCs, for instance, the electoral college will be reduced from 2,100 to 1,300, which really amounts to a massive cut in the democratic base of the nazims whose election it will now be easier to manipulate.
Local elections on a non-party basis for a second time will not just render party programmes and policies ineffective by creating a pool of local leaders responsible directly to the government, but will also promote a retrograde political culture of kin-based, feudal and anti-democratic forces.
