Thursday, March 20, 2014

Will it ever begin?

The endlessly protracted local government elections saga may finally have reached its conclusion as the Supreme Court ordered the Punjab and Sindh governments to hold the polls before November 15. One deadline after the other had passed since the new governments were sworn in, yet they kept finding reasons to delay fulfilling their constitutional duty, to the exasperation of the Supreme Court. Finally, as charges of impropriety and favouritism began to pour in as the process of delimitation got underway, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) pleaded that it did not have sufficient time to print ballot papers, a delay was reluctantly granted. Now, the November 15 deadline must be treated as sacrosanct. This will require not only for the provinces to pass the requisite legislation to hold local bodies elections but for the ECP to get its act together. The Supreme Court has decreed that delimitation and the holding of the polls must be carried out by the ECP, a body that is still without a chief election commissioner many months after the previous officeholder Fakhruddin Ebrahim resigned. There had been speculation that former Supreme Court justice Rana Bhagwandas would be appointed but that idea seems to now have been shelved. With a void at the ECP, there is every possibility that political influence will be brought to bear in ensuring the ‘correct’ outcome in the polls.

Many of the mistakes made in the general elections will have to be avoided. The ink used, for example, was not of a high enough quality for Nadra to determine the veracity of fingerprints on many ballots. Since fingerprint identification is anyway considered a scientifically unsound method, better ways need to be devised for insuring the integrity of the balloting. Delays in providing ballot papers at polling stations turned into a major problem in the general elections and since local bodies elections will require the printing of even more ballot papers this is a task the ECP should start as soon as possible. The reason the local bodies polls have needed to be delayed so many times is that on each occasion where the Supreme Court set a date the provinces and the ECP would choose to argue against the date rather than get to the work of holding elections. A process which should have been complete by now thus hasn’t moved forward at all. The end result is that citizens in Sindh and Punjab are left without the representatives who should be most responsive to their needs.

Paper Rangers

Sufficient time has passed since the law-enforcement authorities in Karachi were given the go-ahead to begin an operation for their effectiveness to be judged. The verdict is damning. They have found to be wanting in their ability to take on the politically-connected criminal elements that have made the metropolis a hub of extortion, criminality and murder. In the wake of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to the city, perhaps sensing that his own performance would be under review, Director General Rangers Sindh Major General Rizwan Akhtar has decided to go on the offensive. He complained that the extra powers given to the paramilitary force, making it the leading agency in the operations, existed only on paper and did not translate into additional authority on the ground. His main issue was with the fact that the Rangers only had the ability to search and arrest suspected criminals but that only the police could detain them. For Akhtar to see this as an issue shows just how little coordination and trust exists between the law-enforcement agencies. Certainly it is true that the police is hopelessly politicised and often ends up letting criminals go but the Rangers have so far arrested thousands of people with no discernible impact on violence in the city. Many of these people will be freed because they have been picked up without cause by an agency that wants to pump up its arrest numbers to act as if it is blameless for the failure to restore law and order in Karachi.

The Rangers, as the history of operations in Karachi shows, have rarely been a stabilising force in the city. Ideally, a paramilitary organisation with no roots in the city would not be needed as the police itself would be sufficient to keep the peace. That, as everyone is all too aware, has not been the case. Now that the ban on recruiting more officers has been lifted and the home department plans to hire as many as 10,000 more officers perhaps the Rangers can gradually be phased out. That will only happen if at least some of the complaints voiced by DG Akhtar are heeded. He is correct in saying that the authorities – and this includes the police – have provided patronage to every criminal element in the city, from the land mafia to target killers. The new recruits, along with the compromised elements already present in the police, will have to be depoliticised before Karachi can ever become a properly functioning city again.

Jirga murders

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has banned extra-judicial tribunals including village jirgas and tough laws against ‘honour’ killings have been passed by parliament, these practices continue. A jirga of the Mahar tribe which met in the town of Wazirabad in Shikarpur had ‘approved’ and had the killing of two young women from the clan carried out, because they had ‘illicit’ relations with two men from the Jagirani tribe. That tribe was fined by the same jirga for ‘abducting’ the women.

What seems like a chain of events snipped out from history books telling tales of medieval times was made possible to a large degree because the jirga was attended, and reportedly presided over, by Ghous Baksh Mahar, an MNA for the PML-Functional. The party commands considerable clout in the area, and there can be little doubt that the MNA’s presence would have dampened any attempts by the local administration or police to act, even if we assume they had intended to. It is good news that the chief justice of Pakistan on Wednesday took notice of the horrific happening, and summoned the IG Police for Sindh to appear in court. His actions will not restore to life two young women but it demonstrates at least some concern and a willingness to intervene. We hope the ‘lawmaker’ concerned will be questioned and brought to justice and so will others involved in the murders. Still more important is the need to set a precedent, so that others can be deterred from holding similar gatherings and determining who should live and who die.