Devolution plan 'a big step for Pakistan'

By Mazhar Abbas

KARACHI (AFP): Pakistan's cabinet this week is expected to approve a radical overhaul of the political system designed to change centuries of feudal culture by empowering women and the downtrodden.

The plan, prepared by the military government's National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), aims to devolve power from the central government to the village through district assemblies and community councils.

It is the showcase reform of military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup last October vowing to bring genuine, grassroots democracy to a country wracked by endemic political turmoil.

His plan, if successful, will give unprecedented power to women, who will have 33 percent representation in the new district assemblies and 50 percent in the union, or village, councils.

People who have traditionally lived under the patronage -- and manipulation -- of wealthy landholders will be given access to the decision-making process for the first time.

Independent analysts welcome the plan but say history is not on its side.

"The proposed plan is highly ambitious in a country where the political process has been halted after every two or three years," said senior Pakistani journalist M.H. Askari.

Since its violent split from India and the British empire in 1947, Pakistan has been riddled with political assassinations, bitter dynastic feuds and no fewer than four military coups.

But in the countryside, where almost 70 percent of Pakistan's wealth is produced, village life has stuck with its own systems of power and influence, apparently oblivious to the high-stakes politics of the provincial capitals.

Analysts said Musharraf is effectively trying to uproot deeply held social traditions ranging from feudal power structures to tribal roles for women.

"I still have my doubts over the implementation of the plan but if what they are saying is done it will be a breakthrough," said Anis Haroon, leader of the Women's Foundation.

"The major problem will be how the women get representation in the areas where they are not even allowed to cast their votes.

"The powerful feudal and tribal systems will not allow women to sit in the district assemblies and I'm afraid those seats will remain vacant."

NRB chairman Gen. Tanweer Naqvi last week told the National Security Council that non-party elections for district governments would be held in five phases starting from December and ending in July 2001.

They will be the first polls under the Musharraf regime, which has been under heavy pressure at home and abroad to lay out an electoral "roadmap" for the country's return to democracy, which it has promised by October 2002.

Officials said that under the new devolution plan, the voter age would be reduced from 21 to 18 years, the local bodies will have their own police forces monitored by a centralized chain of command, and they would be empowered to generate their own financial resources and impose taxes.

"The plan has both positive and negative aspects and it depends how they go about it. It is difficult to implement without abolishing the feudal system," said Pakistan Institute of Labour Research secretary B.M. Kutty.

"On the one hand this can give grassroots participation to local communities in the planning and implementation of people- oriented projects in accordance with local needs, but on the other, non-party based elections will divide the nation into small groups."

Professor of International Relations at Karachi University, Monis Aamir, said the party ban, designed to foster independent candidates, could backfire.

"It will defeat all the positive things of the devolution program and there will be more ethnic and sectarian groups. Political parties have the capacity of bringing people of different sections of society into one fold," he said.

"Former military ruler Gen. Ziaul Haq conducted elections on a non-party basis and today we are paying the price," he added, referring to regular sectarian violence.

Pakistan's leading political parties have rejected the devolution plan as fantasy and a threat the federation. Some have vowed it will be the first thing they change if they ever take office.

"The plan eats away the very concept of federalism. It infringes on provincial autonomy and it will make the provincial government and assemblies redundant," said ex-law minister Raza Rabbani, of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People Party.

Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif's former ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League, has called it a "conspiracy" against the federation.

"They (the military) have no right to take any such decision as it is the work of the elected parliament," said one PML leader, Ejaz Shafi.