Forum Participants Demand Election Reforms for Credible Local Government Elections

Lahore, 13 May 2014 (PR)

Pun­jab local gov­ern­ment sys­tem needs to be reformed for con­duct­ing cred­i­ble local gov­ern­ment elec­tions in line with the inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and recent ver­dicts by the High Court and the Supreme Court. The demand for reforms was echoed by elect­ed mem­bers of Pun­jab Assem­bly, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il soci­ety and media at the launch of Pun­jab Local Elec­tions Frame­work Assess­ment in Lahore on Tues­day. The Pun­jab Local Elec­tions Frame­work Assess­ment (LEFA) has been pub­lished and launched by Improv­ing Par­lia­men­tary Per­for­mance in Pak­istan (IP3), a Euro­pean Union fund­ed project.

The LEFA presents an analy­sis of the elec­toral pro­vi­sion in the Pun­jab Local Gov­ern­ment Act [PLGA 2013] based on Pakistan’s com­mit­ments under the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights and oth­er inter­na­tion­al treaties. The doc­u­ment aims to help the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment to bring the provin­cial elec­toral frame­work in line with Pakistan’s inter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments.

Speak­ing at the event Leader of the Oppo­si­tion in Pun­jab Assem­bly Mian Mah­mood ul Rasheed said that the cur­rent elec­toral frame­work for the local elec­tions in Pun­jab is not in line with the con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan. “Major reforms are need­ed to ensure true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of mass­es into the third tier of gov­er­nance as well as mean­ing­ful of trans­fer of pow­er to grass­roots”, he said.

Address­ing on the occa­sion Chair­man of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Local Gov­ern­ment and Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment, Chaudhry Abdul Raz­zaq Dhiloon said that the local gov­ern­ment act is open to reform and fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions with all stake­hold­ers. He appre­ci­at­ed the analy­sis pre­sent­ed by IP3 and said that the gov­ern­ment was will­ing to work with the project to con­duct the reform of elec­toral com­po­nents of the law.

Direc­tor of Human Rights Com­mis­sion of Pak­istan Hus­sain Naqi said that the cur­rent local gov­ern­ment elec­toral frame­work is a step back­ward from past local gov­ern­ment elec­tions as it does not ensure people’s right to freely choose their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the local lev­el. He endorsed all the rec­om­men­da­tions pre­sent­ed in LEFA.

Rep­re­sent­ing the voic­es of women, female par­lia­men­tar­i­ans includ­ing Dr. Naj­ma Afzal, Gul­naz Shahza­di and Farah Man­zoor demand­ed the gen­uine rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women and asked the polit­i­cal par­ties to encour­age open con­test of women on all elect­ed seats. They also demand­ed to increase the reserved seats of women to at least 33 per­cent.

Pre­sent­ing the find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions under LEFA, the IP3’s Senior Expert Elec­tions Has­san Nasir Mir­ba­har said that Pun­jab local gov­ern­ment act com­pro­mis­es con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed inde­pen­dence of Elec­tion Com­mis­sion of Pak­istan by giv­ing right to issue rules for con­duct of elec­tion to the Pun­jab Gov­ern­ment. He fur­ther said that law does not guar­an­tee equal­i­ty of suf­frage in delim­i­ta­tion of elec­toral con­stituen­cy as there were huge vari­ances in delim­i­ta­tions. Has­san Nasir not­ed that most glar­ing gap in the law was that it does not guar­an­tee trans­paren­cy of results process as there is no require­ment for pub­lish­ing full results of the local gov­ern­ment elec­tions and there is no time bar on ECP to announce results. He fur­ther said that that law does not ade­quate­ly define elec­toral sys­tem, for exam­ple it is not defined in law that when fresh elec­tions will be held once assem­blies expire their term or they are dis­solved. With regards to women’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion he added that as com­pared to pre­vi­ous local gov­ern­ment sys­tems, the law sig­nif­i­cant­ly cuts down women’s reserved seats as there are only 15% reserved seats for women at UC lev­el as com­pared to 33% under Local gov­ern­ment Ordi­nance 2001.
Oth­er speak­ers of the event includ­ed Sar­dar Waqas Mokal, Engi­neer Qamar ul Islam Raja, Muham­mad Asif Bajwa, Irfan Daultana, Syed Mohsin Abbas, Moulana Muham­mad Ilyas Chenoti, Syed Anjum Raza and oth­ers.

The launch event was attend­ed by leg­is­la­tors, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, media and oth­er stake­hold­ers, in large num­bers.

About IP3

The Improv­ing Par­lia­men­tary Per­for­mance in Pak­istan (IP3) project is fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union (EU) and is being deliv­ered by a group of inter­na­tion­al and local part­ners led by the British Coun­cil. Oth­er part­ners in the project include Democ­ra­cy Report­ing Inter­na­tion­al (DRI); West­min­ster Foun­da­tion for Democ­ra­cy; Pak­istan Insti­tute of leg­isla­tive Devel­op­ment and Trans­paren­cy (PILDAT) and Research Soci­ety of Inter­na­tion­al Law, Pak­istan (RSIL).

The main objec­tive of IP3 is to strength­en the par­lia­ment as an insti­tu­tion and to sup­port both com­mit­tees and indi­vid­ual par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the three main areas of their work: leg­is­la­tion, over­sight and rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The project also aims to build the capac­i­ty of par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tari­ats so that they are able to pro­vide bet­ter sup­port for com­mit­tee work. IP3 is a non-par­ti­san enti­ty and works with par­lia­men­tar­i­ans with­out regard for their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions or whether they are on Trea­sury or Oppo­si­tion bench­es.