SINDH Information Minister Sharjeel Memon conceded the other day that the move of restoring the local government system only to Karachi and Hyderabad — with the commissioner system in place in the rest of the province — was a bad idea.

It would now be instructive to explore how the PPP government allowed what was seen as a political masterstroke to turn into a major embarrassment.

When the MQM left the coalition in protest against the postponement of elections on two seats of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly late June, it deliberately upped the ante by taking the unusual step of asking Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad to resign. Much to the MQM’s consternation, the PPP lost no time in scrapping the local government system in a move that political observers said was at least okayed if not initiated by President Asif Ali Zardari.

Emboldened and supported by newfound allies in the PML-F of Pir Pagara, Sindh Assembly members of the PPP not only relieved the governor of his authority over the educational boards in the province but also replaced the Police Order of 2002 with the Police Act of 1861.

The moves taken by the PPP with breathtaking swiftness ensured that whenever the MQM rejoined the coalition — which was even then thought to be only a matter of time because the MQM knew that the PPP government faced no imminent threat — it would do so on the condition that the local government system was restored.

It was reckoned that the MQM would demand the restoration of the status quo ante and no new concessions would have to be made. (Who would have then known that sudden and hitherto unexplained British interest in controlling the incitement of violence in Karachi would contribute to making the MQM grasp the first face-saving opportunity to lower the city’s political temperature?)

But then two devastating mistakes — one by former Sindh home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza and the other by President Zardari himself — squandered the political gains so astutely made by the PPP.

Shortly after the MQM left the coalition, graffiti appeared overnight, significantly in MQM strongholds in Karachi, demanding a province for the Urdu-speaking people. Naturally, the graffiti irked Sindhi nationalist parties — which have always suspected the MQM of harbouring the ambition of eventually separating Karachi and Hyderabad from Sindh province — as well as the ANP, which claims to represent the Pakhtun population of Karachi.

The graffiti was also condemned by PPP leaders, though they avoided the empty rhetoric offered by the nationalist parties. In touch with the MQM nemesis Afaq Ahmed, Mr Mirza was so piqued that in spiteful remarks he poured scorn not only on the MQM but also on the entire Urdu-speaking community.Mr Mirza’s remarks — which were subsequently declared to be his personal views for which he also offered a red-faced apology — indicated that the PPP was, perhaps unwittingly, adopting the narrative of nationalist parties. This, in a sense, is the latter’s success. Unable to achieve any electoral victory over the years, they managed to hand over their narrow and exclusionist ideology to a political party that has always sought to transcend ethnic divisions.

And this brings us to an even more crucial question. Why does the PPP live in constant dread of Sindhi nationalist parties?

That they have the street power to bring life to a standstill in the province is well known. What is equally well known is that they have hardly ever fared well in elections.

Suffering decades-long electoral irrelevance, the nationalist parties swing into action every time they feel they can assert — even with specious arguments — that the people of Sindh have been let down by the PPP, or, worse still, that the PPP has given in to the Urdu-speaking community or, horror of horrors, to Punjab.

This is, however, not to say that the legitimate concerns of the nationalist parties — or any party for that matter — should by dismissed out of hand. One of the reasons why the local government system is so bitterly opposed in the interior of Sindh is that it is felt, with reason, that its delimitation was marred by gerrymandering during the Musharraf government, with the result that the Urdu-speaking community was over-represented.

Furthermore, it is argued that a disproportionate amount of public funds is spent on the urban centres of the province, especially with little parliamentary oversight. And this is a serious issue.

In what could be described as a startling disclosure, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly recently noted that during the 10 years when the 2001 local government ordinance remained in force across the province, funds allocated to the district governments remained outside its purview. This meant that around 55 per cent of total provincial expenditure remained outside parliamentary oversight.

With allegations of graft and favouritism in fast-paced though mostly shoddy execution of development schemes swirling around quite a few district governments, it is hardly surprising that most nazims failed to submit audit reports to district councils.

The PAC chairman also revealed that 183 audit reports of district governments, covering a decade of much-maligned local government in Sindh, have been gathering dust at the Governor’s House.

PPP lawmakers and leaders would do well to focus on the lack of transparency and parliamentary supervision in their trenchant diatribes against the local government system. Describing it as a conspiracy aimed at the dismemberment of Sindh plays into the hands of nationalist parties, who are currently enjoying every bit of much-delayed electorate attention at the expense of the PPP.

The writer is a member of staff.

bahzad_alam@yahoo.com