WASHINGTON, Aug 24: In a sign of President Pervez Musharraf’s mixed political role, his policies are helping both the women’s rights activists and their opponents, says one of half-a-dozen articles on Pakistan’s local body elections published in US newspapers.

“While President Musharraf increased local government seats reserved for women, his government has allied politically with religious parties, including the JUI, that would force women out of public life,” says James Rupert of Newsday.

David Rohde of the New York Times notes that four years ago, the offices (of nazims) did not exist. Today, they are a bright spot in an otherwise failed effort to turn Pakistan into a stable and vibrant democracy,” he writes.

“It’s close to democracy, if not true democracy,” he quotes a businessman in Rawalpindi as saying.

The Newsday article profiles Shad Begum, a woman candidate in conservative Dir valley, who won a seat in the previous elections and prepared to push the local government to improve health care and education.

But when the council met, its male members forced her and other female members to sit in a side room, behind a locked door, the article points out.

“A loudspeaker and a microphone were supposed to let us speak to the council session but in three years, they never worked,” says Shad Begum.

“Local elections this summer have revived one of Pakistan’s oldest and most bitterly contested issues: Should women be allowed to run for office - or even to vote,” says Mr Rupert.

He notes Pakistani women have been formally empowered to vote since 1956. In many cities and towns, they pursue public careers, including in politics. And, Benazir Bhutto was twice elected prime minister.

“But in much of Pakistan, the men who rule their localities - landlords, tribal chiefs and priests - resist sharing power with women and cite ethnic traditions and interpretations of Islam as justification.”

David Rohde notes that under a system created in 2001, each of the country’s 79,612 nazims, or supervisors, receive thousands of dollars in government funds for their areas, whose population ranges from a few thousand to about 30,000 people.

Then they face a choice. They can try to win re-election by using the money for the

pay-offs and patronage that have dominated Pakistani politics for decades. Or they can try to win by improving government services that their constituents rely on: roads, electrical systems, schools and health clinics.

The new system is part of a $650 million Asian Development Bank program to improve local government, schools, police and courts in Pakistan, the largest programme of its kind in the developing world.