ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: Pattan Development Organization has taken exception to the federal government's decision to reduce the number of union council seats in the local bodies polls slated for March next year.

In a press release here on Wednesday, Pattan stated that the federal government's decision to mend the Local Government Ordinance on the whims of the provinces dominated by the traditional power elites would jeopardise the very purpose of decentralisation that sought to empower the most marginalized groups in the society.

The reduction in the number of union council seats would slash, by almost half, the numerical strength of women, peasants, labourers and minorities in these local level decision-making institutions.

"These amendments are tantamount to capture of the institutions by the elite," a spokesperson for Pattan said. The reduction in the number of seats, he said, would make it easier for the local power elites to get their own people elected to these institutions, he said.

Pattan, he said, was an organisation working in the areas of democratization and good governance and had termed the process adopted by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) to finalize these amendments non-transparent and exclusive.

About a reliable process of introducing amendments, he said civil society groups would had been involved in the process, which could have identified from the people's perspective the deficiencies that were marring the working of local the level institutions.

In the absence of people's groups in the review process, he said, the traditional power elites had been able to push their agenda in the decentralization scheme, restricting the ability of the marginalized sections of society to play a role in the decision-making process that affected their lives.

We demand the government make the process of amendments in the Local Government Ordinance inclusive, giving space to diverse views held by social and political groups in the country, as the announced amendments ignore the aspirations of politically and socially marginalized groups, he said.