The great escape

Once you bend the rules, you actually bend yourself to every compromise

A billion bucks scandal, the big and powerful suppressing the poor and powerless, Spiderman intervenes and hounds them, dons and mafiosi escape leaving room for the next sequel. This is not a Hollywood fantasy but Pakistani reality. This has been the live and running serial going on in Pakistan for over six decades. Every government comes in the guise of a saviour claiming freedom from loot and plunder, and every government becomes part of a larger share in the pie for the same loot and plunder. As the heat turns up, it packs its bags for cooler havens abroad only to be back when its successors become even bigger looters. This is why the present clean up operation in the country is being looked at with the disbelief of this just being another sequel of so many episodes that end up making room for another sequel. However, as in movies where the sequel reaches its fourth or fifth version, it stops attracting audiences. Similarly, in Pakistan, these operation clean ups’ inability to provide a happily ever after ending has cast doubts on the latest one being the beginning of the end.

The theme of “they came, they looted, they escaped, they returned” sequence started after the demise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Ziaul Haq. Bhutto started with the cleanup operation slogan of roti, kapra aur makaan (food, clothing and shelter) and became the symbol of a saviour of the poor. Unfortunately, despite his charisma and his cult following, his own insecurities got the better of him. The 1977 elections’ rigging and opposition unrest gave space to General Ziaul Haq to come as a saviour and protect the country from corrupt politicians. General Zia became President Zia and his 90-day promise elongated into 11 years of serving US interests before finally he died in a plane crash.

Then came the illustrious, democratic musical chairs where every two years Messrs Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto ousted each other in the name of cleaning up the mess and establishing democracy. Each time the country’s assets went down while the assets of our leaders multiplied exponentially. Enter the saviour once again in the form of Musharraf who looked the most promising at the clean up job as he convicted and jailed the big guns. Nawaz Sharif was arrested and given life sentence on multiple charges of corruption and hijacking, and for a while that looked like the end of the story. Not so. Barely 14 months later Nawaz and 18 members of his family were whisked off to Jeddah due to a 10-year deal between Musharraf and the Saudi government. The Sharifs escaped to the holy land to relish the billions they had looted and stowed in Saudi Arabia and the UK. Meanwhile, Benazir Bhutto managed to escape to Dubai and London. Meanwhile, Asif Zardari, who was in jail for more than eight years, was also allowed to leave the country and preferred to bask in the glory of US soil to recoup for a future return to Pakistan.

Musharraf brought in a cabinet of professional technocrats who were perceived to be doing what the politicians had failed to do. To head this cabinet he imported Shaukat Aziz and stage-managed his political eligibility by making him get a miraculous 100,000 votes from Thar. Since Shaukat Aziz was a well-known international banker, there was the comfort that he would be able to do what politicians could not, i.e. improve governance and stay away from graft and greed. But once you bend the rules, you actually bend yourself to every compromise. That is what happened to Musharraf who, in order to legitimise his political illegitimacy, went back to the same old rotten politicians he had vowed to expunge. As the cry for his autocratic rule to end became louder, he signed the infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to set all the scoundrels free and enabled them to make a comeback to the political scene with a vengeance.

Shaukat Aziz’s claim to fame was not his governance management but his gift management. It was an amazing gift list of over 1,000 items, of which one-third were not even reported by Shaukat Aziz. The cost of these state gifts runs into millions. The gifts included diamond necklaces, gold ornaments, pearls, Persian carpets, jewelled wristwatches, vases, chandeliers, etc. He neatly packed containers of these gifts for his family in London and the US, and left the country. Not to be outdone by his junior, President Musharraf had a list of super expensive state gifts given by many heads of states that he took with himself after exonerating all murderers and criminals through the NRO to seek cooler pastures abroad. As the 2013 elections came nearer, and as he saw democratic governments fail yet again, he made a comeback only to become a part of the old vendetta of Nawaz versus Musharraf. These political Godfathers escape to foreign lands when the heat is on knowing that it will only be a matter of time before they get the space to return.

Altaf Hussain’s case is unique as he left the country in 1992 but has never really left it. With a stake in every government due to a major hold over Karachi, there have always been allegations of the MQM being a money and murder mafia. Despite that no government has had the guts to really pursue the MQM as they need this party to remain in power. Thus goes the story so far of how most of our leaders have plundered the country, have been convicted of murders, corruption and extortion, and have finally escaped abroad to live off their looted riches, ready to make a comeback through some national or international deal. Therefore, when the present operation took place against the MQM and PPP, most analysts felt it was like déjà vu. Twice before the government and army have promised this clean up and have compromised for power but, admittedly, things have never really gone this far before where foreign countries — UK and India included — are now being approached to close the circle.

However, there are questions that need to be answered. As the noose tightened around the neck of the Zardari family where billions have been discovered in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and fisheries scandal, why has the family been let go? The other question is, is this noose also going to be around those parties that have been shielding and promoting terrorist organisations in Punjab and other provinces? Thirdly, is this noose going to cover corrupt army officers, judges and bureaucrats? The answer to these questions will lead us to determine whether this horror/thriller will end up with another sequel of the Return of the Godfather or whether it will finally be that Spiderman kills and buries all these mafias to free the country from the forces of evil.

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Power struck

After two years, the monster has become bigger and has started consuming human lives, industry growth and government popularity

It is the month of June, beginning of the holy Ramzan, with the sun blistering down, electricity becoming extinct and over 1,000 people losing their lives, all due to the “unexpected surge” in the demand for energy. How inconsiderate of nature, how callous of the public, how careless of hospitals; this is the explanation of the people in power for the lack of power for the poor. Every day is a horror story, as mortuaries run out of space to accommodate the dead bodies of people who could not escape from the heat even in their homes because of a lack of water and power. Every year summer comes and every year people suffer, the government defaults and the electrical, financial and psychological breakdowns drive the country to the brink of insanity. A woman in Faisalabad committing suicide when she received a bill of Rs 60,000 is somewhat normal, but for hundreds of people to die both at home and outside because the heat has become a killer is not normal. Power issues have become an out of control monster.

The PML-N’s election campaign was based on bashing the PPP on their failure to manage power issues and their slogan and jingle of “andharay mitain ge hum” (we will eradicate the darkness) was the central attraction for voters. This was followed by emotional speeches by Shahbaz Sharif, claiming that energy issues would be resolved within six months, then within a year, then two years, etc. However, after two years, the monster has become bigger and has started consuming human lives, industry growth and government popularity. The puzzling question in everyone’s mind is that if they acknowledged that this was what won them the elections, why was it not their top priority? The answer is the same as ever: it required a set of things to be done differently in appointing people, cleansing the system and major investment in the right areas, which to date has not been done.

Firstly, their claim of appointing the best by merit in this sector, in contrast to the appointment of Zardari’s cronies by the PPP, was rightly said but wrongly done. By appointing Khawaja Asif and Abid Sher Ali as heads of these ministries, what message have they sent? They are no different. Appointments were all based on anything but merit. Just to quote one incident, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), the most important organisation for regulating the power sector is headed by a cousin of Khawaja Asif. The appointments of the heads of input supplier bodies have already been national scandals. In two years, the heads of distribution companies like LESCO, FESCO and others, are all loyalist appointees and according to a Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) report, these institutions are reeking with corruption.

The government has blamed the increase in demand in June for the current power crisis, as the demand surged to 21,000 megawatts (MW). According to the available figures, the generation capacity was 22,797 MW in 2014 and according to the government, almost 600 MW have been added to it. However, according to a NEPRA report for 2014, not a single megawatt was added. Even without any addition, the installed capacity is more than the demand but the problem is that most of the plants are not operating at 100 percent efficiency, which the PML-N acknowledged in its manifesto and claimed to prioritise running them at full capacity. The following are two examples of crass inefficiency. The government prematurely inaugurated the Nandipur plant and launched a media campaign that 425 MW have been added to the system. Within days, the plant went offline. It was originally designed for furnace oil but was being run on diesel and the managers of the plant refused to run it permanently on diesel. Similarly, the 747 MW Guddu power plant went offline because the contractor refused to risk the premature running of the plant. The 410 MW Uch-I plant did not have transmission lines to distribute power.

One of the major problems hounding the energy industry was the circular debt that had climbed to Rs 500 billion in the five years of the PPP government. The PML-N had claimed that it would settle the debt and enhance the IPP capacity. They managed to do that, but the mystery of whom they gave such a hefty amount to without an audit has not been solved. The debt that the PPP took five years to accumulate has reached Rs 600 billion in just two years of the PML-N government. The new budget bodes more dangerous times to come.

Perhaps the biggest evidence of poor governance has been the non-payment of receivables and power theft worth over Rs 500 billion. Abid Sher Ali has said that load shedding is taking place in areas where people have defaulted in paying their bills. The higher the default, the higher the load shedding. According to the government’s report, the list of defaulters includes the PM house and President house, with receivables of Rs 3 million and Rs 30 million respectively. This list includes most government departments, including the Parliament Lodges, ECP, FIA and PCB, etc. So the question is how many of these have been subject to the level of load shedding that the masses have been suffering from? After two years of random efforts to recover money, the water and power ministry has accepted failure and has announced an “incentive” of 30 percent rebate in bills for those defaulters who pay their bills and a five percent incentive for those officers who collect these bills. Instead of fines and penalties to defaulters and the dismissal of officers who have failed to perform their duty, rebates and rewards are being offered to the offenders. This just about sums up what ails the country, its institutions and its systems.

With an Ethiopia-like situation in the country, we continue to regress back to the Stone Age, when basics like electricity, water and gas were non-existent. According to Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif, Karachi is not his responsibility but K-Electric’s. The CEO of K-Electric says that over 90 percent of Karachi is fine. The CM of Sindh is busy in Naudero on Benazir Bhutto’s birthday, asking his interior minister to sue both the federal government and K-Electric, while the public is struggling to find hospitals ready to give emergency treatment and find space in graveyards to bury their dead. In a society where criminals are rewarded and the innocent are punished, barbarianism becomes common. The Karachi clean-up operation is now being viewed as the thinnest of silver linings in this political storm. Our political system needs to be completely rethought. Instead of nourishing the powerful and corrupt elite, the system should ensure the devolution of power to local governments, empowering the people to take control of the management and betterment of their own lives.

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Shades of Black

The problem in Pakistan is that those responsible for catching black acts have such a huge tolerance for shades of black, along with the ability of turning black into white, that nearly every wrongdoer escapes punishment

You are innocent until proved guilty. This is a rule of justice and fair play. However, in many parts of the world and especially in Pakistan, this rule seems to have been changed to mean that you are innocent, even when you are proved guilty. This interpretation of the rule not only exists in politics, but seems to have pervaded the corporate world, the social sector and the sports arena as well. While Hillary Clinton is struggling to keep her fund raising campaign for the presidential race within the rules, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) – the supreme body that runs high-stakes football in the world — seems to be finding it difficult to turn black into grey. Here in Pakistan, Rs 230 billion have been siphoned off for terrorist activities under the guise of religious or political expediency.

The corporate world, which is supposed to be a model of discipline and professionalism, tries to justify and hide shades of black. J P Morgan, one of the US’s largest banks, was considered a great success story in China — a very tough and protected market. However, hiring the sons of the powerful elite and using them to influence billion dollar decisions in J P Morgan’s favour is not exactly in the black. Similarly, the sports world has been rocked by scandals recently. FIFA has had a spurt of scandals to deal with. In the latest scandal, Sepp Blatter has brought to fore the corruption embedded in this big money game. After a huge scandal on the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar and Russia in 2018 and 2022 and a consequential inquiry report, the association has become an international joke. The report declared the corruption charges as correct, but the process was considered sound enough to be upheld — meaning that it was not black enough. Both Pakistan and India have been beset with cricketing scandals. The game of musical chairs between Ashraf Zaka and Najam Sethi, one a banker and the other an anchor, was ultimately resolved by a tailor-made solution to suit the ruling government. Srinavasan, the head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and his son-in-law have been involved in scandals but they are not big enough to be termed illegal.

However, nothing beats politics, especially in Pakistan, with its magnanimity to overlook and condone crimes of unlimited scale. Which other country has the distinction of having its President called Mr Ten Percent, with all sorts of cases and scandals attached to him, and yet be known as a role model in political acumen and maturity. His Swiss bank accounts have been an open secret for years and all opposition parties have asked for that money to be brought back to Pakistan, with some particularly graphic statements from Shahbaz Sharif. The $ 60 million dollars in Swiss banks aside, the necklace that the Swiss government wanted to return to our government has been refused. The Pakistani government has been in litigation over this case since November 7, 1997 because of the claim that ornaments costing £ 117,000 at the time of purchase were part of $ 13.5 million in commissions given to two Swiss companies on September 29, 1994, during the second tenure of Benazir Bhutto’s government. The PPP denies the ownership of this jewellery, despite evidence given by the Swiss government.

The PML-N made statements of dragging President Zardari on the streets till he brings back all the Swiss money but is now mute. In fact, Shahbaz Sharif has apologised to Zardari for his statements. After all, over £ 100,000 are not big enough to make a ruckus about. Another mystery is the necklace donated by the Turkish Prime Minister’s (PM’s) wife for flood victims in 2010. It disappeared from the NADRA warehouse and is now in the possession of Yusuf Raza Gilani, who has claimed that the Turkish PM’s wife was like a sister and he had affectionately kept it. The fact that charity for flood victims was found in the former PM’s custody is shameful. This may be embarrassing for the country but for our leaders, it is just a necklace.

One would assume that since such ethical digressions are a worldwide phenomenon, Pakistan is just a small subset of this virus. The tendency of people to bend rules to suit their requirements is universal. However, systems of accountability exist in other countries to ensure that, sooner or later, the culprits are either punished or brought back on track, which is why these countries and organisations keep progressing. The problem in Pakistan is that those responsible for catching black acts have such a huge tolerance for shades of black, along with the ability of turning black into white, that nearly every wrongdoer escapes punishment.

The latest tool for whitening black acts are the Judicial Investigative Teams (JITs). These JITs are deliberately made up of people who will have meetings, form committees and then write reports absolving the wrongdoers of all crimes. The two JITs formed for investigating the Model Town incident, in which 100 people were shot, is self-evident. The first JIT was formed under Justice Baqar Najafi and was not accepted by the opposition. The chief minister thought that because there was opposition to it, this JIT would give a favourable report, exonerating them of all allegations. To his surprise, the report was not a carte blanche. Thus, he set up another JIT and this time made sure that it produced a report that made the villains look like heroes and the heroes look like villains.

On the contrary, in FIFA’s case, despite a contentious report on the corruption, over a dozen Executive Committee members have resigned. FIFA president Sepp Blatter has also resigned, despite being re-elected. J P Morgan has suffered hugely after the Bernie Madoff scandal and is taking corrective measures. Pakistan’s tolerance for what is black has reached dizzying heights, as even proven criminals are termed innocent. If some of our leaders can say that poor Ayyan Ali was just carrying half a million dollars of her hard earned money and she is being unfairly “victimised”, then God only knows what it would take for people in power to be convicted. Even the public is immune to such deviation. The belief is that all are corrupt, so let us choose the least corrupt one. Without a complete rejection of all shades of black at most levels, it will be difficult to have any judicial or legal system controlling the increasing moral decay in society.

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Reforming Without Reforms By Andleeb Abbas

The budget itself shows a deficit of 16.26 trillion. This revenue gap is the mother of all problems

Try bringing a change in any institution without first changing laws and without ensuring that these laws are being followed across the board; the result would be chaos and failure. Governance is all about ensuring effective delivery of service through constant improvement in performance. The budget is a reflection of the performance of a country during the year and its future plan based on it. It is like the profit and loss statement of a country that indicates how well it is doing on its key performance indicators. Any organisation that continuously shows losses will not be sustainable. Such entities resort to borrowing and the borrowing always is not just expensive but highly conditional to the borrower’s demands. That is exactly what Pakistan is going through. Every year the country fails to earn more than it spends and every year the country has to borrow more to pay off earlier borrowing. How can this vicious cycle change? The answer seems logical: bring reforms that curtail expenditures and improve receipts. How can that be done? By identifying unnecessary expense and enhancing the revenue generation system. Simple but almost impossible. Why is it impossible? Mainly because it will require an admission on the part of our leaders that they themselves need to reform their mindset, their lifestyles and habits to really set the example and tone for serious business.

It is evident that each year budget making is a template filling ritual that is done routinely and ruthlessly. The most important part is to develop a vision and purpose statement of the budget and then align every allocation in line with that purpose. For example, if the purpose statement says that we want a budget that focuses on the poor, human development and reforms then all projects, subsidies and taxes should reflect this focus. That is what is the biggest difference with template filling and beginning with a vision and purpose exercise. We have all acknowledged that our core problems are energy, employment, education and shortage of resources. Every government, before coming into government, talks about reforms and puts a great deal of emphasis on these as pre-requisites of taking the country out of crisis, especially in their manifestos.

The PML-N won the elections talking about the energy crisis and their manifesto identifies that the energy crisis is due to the corruption and inefficiency of the GENCOS, circular debt and inefficient DISCOS. Reforms and restructuring are suggested for all of them. However, if we see the three budgets that have been presented so far very little energy reforms are visible and thus the energy crisis has worsened. Circular debt of Rs 480 billion that was settled without a pre audit has again mysteriously accumulated to Rs 270 billion and has not been settled or even accounted for, being parked in energy holdings. This budget gimmickry will not remove the circular debt but will rather take focus off it and help it to become a monster difficult to handle. GENCO reforms and efficiency are a far cry and even new units like Nandipur become an embarrassing scandal in terms of their operation and efficiency. Recoveries and line losses are at an all time high with no relief in sight. Where we really need to spend — education and health — are so low in priorities that a cut and paste of last year’s allocation are a reflection of these contradictions.

Similarly, the other problem that the budget presents is the low revenues to cover these expenses. Again, all parties agree that tax reforms are absolutely essential as less than one percent of the people in this country pay tax. The tax to GDP ratio is 7.5 percent and needs to double up to support the type of expenditure the government is incurring. The manifesto of the government rightly points out to the fact that tax reforms and broadening of the tax net are required to reduce the tax burden. However, we see no signs of that happening in the last two years. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is still a place to issue SRO exemptions to the rich and impose indirect taxes on the poor. The present budget has imposed Rs 253 billion new taxes but does not have any plan of decreasing the GST or withdrawing exemptions of Rs 665 billion to the rich. Some mention of taking the SRO out of the FBR is in the budget but then it will be in government hands to be exploited even more.

The budget itself shows a deficit of 16.26 trillion. This revenue gap is the mother of all problems. This is a fundamental flaw that ruins the whole economic stability. With a deficit of this scale Pakistan will always be resorting to all measures that are designed to cripple the economy. We will keep on borrowing from the IMF and other lenders, we will keep borrowing more to pay off earlier borrowing, we will tax the already taxed, we will print more notes to fill up the gaps, we will do figure fudging to hoodwink the public and agencies and we will become more dependent, more indebted, more enslaved. This destroys the internal and external credibility of the economy and the country. While the government boasts of the higher rating of agencies like Standard and Poor and Moodys giving a higher rating, its own published Pakistan Economic Survey shows a dismal performance on local and foreign investment. The GDP growth rate has missed the target as we have lower exports, manufacturing and agriculture growth. This response is due to a lack of business confidence on the potential of the economy. In a country where the banking sector is lending more to the government to pay off debts than the private sector to set up and expand businesses, it is time for serious rethink, redesign and reform.

But tough reforms can only happen if the people making reforms are leading by example. While we were promising expenditure cuts to the Prime Minister (PM) and President House of 30 and 40 percent in the manifesto, we see almost a 100 percent increase in their lavish spending. While the PM has allocated Rs 13,000 per month for poor households, his own household allocation has been fixed at Rs seven million per month. While we talk about appointing competent professionals to public sector organisations we see the PPP trend of appointing family and loyalists continue and while we talk about taxing more people we see parliamentarians paying laughable tax amounts. While we ask people to pay exorbitant electricity bills, we see Parliament House and the PM Secretariat defaulting on their bills. When we compromise on principles we compromise on results. Reforms need a discipline that is non-existent in our lawmakers and our leaders. With so many vested interests in the money available, the budget is just a ritual without purpose. Reforms are a way of thinking, believing and doing whatever it takes. Unfortunately, budgeting has become a way of dodging, deflecting and not doing what should be done

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Local bodies and more

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided to allocate 30 percent of development funds to the local government

The holding of local bodies elections was quite an event. The fact that it was held after almost 10 years in the country was a milestone everybody thought was worth celebrating. The fact that it turned out to be a gigantic exercise of facilitating nearly 42,000 seats was also debatable. The fact that it was contested with a lot more zeal and noise than the general elections was also mentionable. The fact that lives were lost made it more controversial. The fact that every election turns out to be an election commission and political parties’ feud is normal. Despite all this, these elections are heralded as finally a victory for democracy and grassroots empowerment.

The fact that these elections have surprised many in terms of complexity and engagement is due to the fact that very few understand local bodies elections held in Pakistan. The previous two major exercises were carried out by dictators and were more designed to support their own power than power at the grassroots level. The other misconception that people have is that since local government is the third tier of government it is not as complex and important as the national and provincial elections; reality is to the contrary. Therefore, most problems of perception and practice have occurred because never before has an exercise so large and so grassroots been held in the country and thus the election commission, provincial government and political parties were all underprepared for the enormity of the scale, issues, involvement and reaction.

Some would say that Balochistan had already held them and we should have learned from its experience. However, the Balochistan experience was not really a comparable one. A total of 6,682 seats were contested compared to nearly 42,000 seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 2,332 candidates were elected unopposed in Balochistan and only 4,350 seats were contested in the local government elections held on December 7, 2013. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa there were almost 84,000 candidates who were contesting these elections. The reason given for such low participation and interest in local bodies in Balochistan was that the Local Government Act was weak and vested powers in the hands of the province, while the Act in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa devolved power to the village council and mobilised people at all levels to participate. The Election Assessment Mission (EAM) by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) gathered information and undertook analysis in Balochistan of its compliance with Pakistan’s international law obligations to which the government of Pakistan has committed itself. Most of the reports done on these elections concluded that the legal framework gave excessive powers and discretion to the provincial government. Delimitation was completed late, information was not sufficiently publicly available and there were extreme inequalities of the vote. Returning officers lacked training and oversight by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and necessary election materials were not always available. Not enough electoral information was gathered and made public. No official result numbers were published. Furthermore, there was lack of scrutiny from the media, no observation by civil society and an unclear system of dispute resolution.

Factually speaking, the Balochistan elections were more about seat adjustment between the major parties than an open transparent tier-by-tier contest. According to reported ECP commentary in the media, a total of 22,274 nominations were accepted, with rejections reportedly primarily due to constituency mistakes. Approximately 20 percent of the candidates then withdrew, as local agreements were reached. In total, seven percent of seats had no candidates, 35 percent had only one candidate and, thus, elections only took place in 58 percent of wards. Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s elections were not just contested between parties but the fact that the second biggest winners were independent candidates is also an indicator of the trust of the people in the system that empowers people right to the village level. The major difference in the two elections is also the fact that, unlike Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has decided to allocate 30 percent of development funds to the local government with each village council getting two million rupees. Village councils will have not only money but authority to monitor and report that development has taken place or not. That is the reason these elections were fiercely and furiously contested. With no electoral reforms, an ECP not even capable of handling 800 plus seats in the general elections leaves aside 41,000 plus of local bodies, a provincial government underprepared for the cut throat competition from its own allies and political parties desperate to gain propaganda and grassroots advantage, historical elections became a predictable victim of mismanagement and political desperation.

However, anything of this scale and complexity done for the first time will always face problems and resistance. What we need to analyse is the lessons learnt and develop a road map of improvement. It would also be useful for media and civil society to do an analysis of the one and a half years of Balochistan’s local bodies and their impact of transferring power to the grassroots. So, if their elections were more manageable, have they really made a difference at the grassroots? So far, the impact has been invisible. In fact, the latest indicators on education and health in Balochistan,which should have been the major beneficiaries of the local government system, have shown deterioration and stagnation at the bottom of the list. Thus, there are three parts to making a local government successful: firstly, a local government bill and legislation that ensures transfer of power from federal and provincial levels to the local level. Secondly, holding an election that ensures free and fair participation of people and a mandate representing the real choice of the people. Thirdly, effective capacity building of the chosen representatives and a monitoring system that ensures local government effectiveness.

While Balochistan local bodies have not made their presence felt either in terms of legislation or elections, Khyber Pakhtunkwa distinguished itself by having the best legislation but needs to analyse all loopholes in the management of elections. However, to keep this important form of democracy alive it is imperative that all disputes of election irregularities should be resolved at the earliest. Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s government should make a comprehensive plan of capacity building for the newly elected councillors. This exercise will have to cover a wide array of skills both soft and technical as almost all the representatives will be exposed to this type of role for the first time in their lives. Training needs to have its own criteria of quality assurance as an untrained representative will be as lethal to local bodies as an untrained returning officer was to the elections. For democracy to take root and to ensure the implementation of local bodies’ elections in Punjab and Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s elections should become a great model to learn from and move ahead.

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