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democracy
Running a federation
The situation today is that the federation embodied in the much mutilated constitution in force is not acceptable to the constituent units for reasons that may appear to be dissimilar to one another but which spring from a single cause -- resistance to the democratic principle
By I A Rehman
Sixty-two years after its establishment as an independent state, Pakistan is facing the same challenge the authors of the Lahore Resolution of 1940 had bravely tried to meet, namely, establishing and running a federation without the requisite socio-political capital.
The Lahore Resolution began with an emphatic rejection of the "scheme of federation embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935" as "totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country" and for being "altogether unacceptable to Muslim India". The answer to the constitutional crisis lay, according to the Resolution, in grouping Muslim majority areas "to constitute independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign".
The situation today is that the federation embodied in the much mutilated constitution in force is not acceptable to the constituent units for reasons that may appear to be dissimilar to one another but which spring from a single cause -- resistance to the democratic principle.
Balochistan is seething with discontent fuelled by a persistent denial of its democratic rights. The conflict in FATA and Malakand Division has its roots in the state's failure to offer the people of these areas democratic accommodation within the federation. The demand for reverting from the presidential form of government to the system of Cabinet (collective) rule also is derived from the fundamental requisites of federalism. The reappearance of the Seraiki-speaking people's demand for autonomy and the tussle between the district representatives and the provincial governments over the future of local bodies too are symptoms of discontent caused by the federation's deviation from democratic principles.
These problems have not acquired an ominous shape all of a sudden; they have been there for decades and have been aggravated by Pakistani rulers' refusal to realise that a federation is a deliberately contrived polity based on its constituents' voluntary choice, that a federal arrangement cannot be imposed on any constituent unit by force or by any argument the latter cannot accept, and that the division of power between a federal centre and the federating units needs to be reviewed from time to time.
Unfortunately, the demands of the federal system and the peculiar conditions of Pakistan have never been properly appreciated. It was necessary to address these matters on the very morrow of independence but this was not done. It is possible that the Quaid-i-Azam's successors accepted the state structure inherited from the colonial rulers as a proper, workable federation. A more charitable view is that the problems and challenges the new state was confronted with in its formative period made it impossible for the leadership to think of constructing a federal state. And when they did take up this matter they chose extremely weak instruments to achieve integration of five federating units, all of them entitled to equality of status and all holding on to the pledge of autonomy and sovereign rights.
Many years were spent in the pursuit of a formula that could ensure equality between East Bengal and West Pakistan. The parity formula eventually hammered out failed to satisfy the eastern wing and at the same time sowed the seeds of three provinces' (Balochistan, Frontier and Sindh, which were robbed of their status as federating units) alienation. The mischief was undone after 15 years but its adverse effect on the psyche of these provinces' population is visible to this day. The religious slogan was tried as the cement to bind the federating units together and it did not work. Finally, the central establishment decided on a trade-off between autonomy and development. The manoeuvre failed in East Pakistan and it is unlikely to succeed in Balochistan and the tribal areas. The lesson for the present establishment is: no federating unit will surrender its rights to autonomy in exchange for any development works however huge their economic fallout. There is no point in increasing the hurt to the Baloch by talking of mega projects.
Another aspect of Pakistan's constitutional crisis is that the establishment chooses to work towards a federal system through arbitrarily determined installments. The 1973 constitution was accepted by the less populous provinces partly because it accommodated them somewhat better than the 1956 constitution and partly because it was offered as a step leading on to the grant of greater autonomy to them. For instance, they were promised abolition of the concurrent legislative list by 1983. Off and on hints have been dropped that this may be done now. The trouble is that political demands are valid for certain periods. If they are not conceded in time they are superseded by tougher demands. This is what happened in East Bengal and now Islamabad is on trial whether it can prevent this happening again.
To understand this point one may note that, like the Bengalis, the less populous units of the federation spent years on asking Islamabad to honour the pledge made in the Lahore Resolution. They stopped the practice quite some time ago. The implications are clear: today they will not be satisfied with 'another dose' of autonomy that could have made them happy two decades ago. The lesson obviously is that if Balochistan is not won over soon enough the task may become impossible before long.
The federal issue is involved in the current debate over the form of government. The Prime Minister will not be able to get far with innocent declarations ("the present system in neither presidential nor parliamentary") because the system is much too centralised to suit a federation. Federations have flourished under both presidential and parliamentary systems and the key to their success is the mechanics of control over the central authority and the degree of authority retained by the federating units. The time for simple remedies has passed. Now the situation can be saved only by a new compact between the centre and the provinces. The task is not as easy as Islamabad thinks.
The dangers in delaying a resolution of the federal question have been underlined by the recent flurry of statements for and against the carving out of a Seraiki province. The demand is almost half a century old and it has been sustained partly by the neglect of the Southern Punjab districts by the central and the provincial governments both. The trouble is that the more strident this demand grows the greater becomes the less populous provinces' fears of suffering an eclipse in the Senate. Since the Seraiki-speaking people's right to autonomy cannot be rejected outright (and provincial status is not the only answer), Islamabad faces the task of satisfying their legitimate demand without adversely affecting the existing units' vote-power in the Senate.
No less demanding is the job of redefining the place of local government in the country's constitutional scheme. A federally controlled system of local bodies is in clear breach of the federal principle. At the same time these institutions cannot be left at the mercy of provincial governments. Since local bodies constitute a layer of governance distinct from provincial and central lawyers, they will have to be regulated by the constitution.
While each of the issues discussed here needs separate attention the common thread is the democratic principle. It may be possible to put Pakistan back on the rails by adhering to democratic practice even if the cost is found to be higher than it might have been if the democratic path had not been abandoned years ago.
The champions of the status quo are likely to protest against raising fundamental issues regarding the federation while the state is fighting for its life. They should be helped to realise that Pakistan's chances of negotiating the grim crisis it faces today will improve if the federal system is stabilised and all federating units can join the struggle to meet the people's expectations of a good and responsible state.
resource allocation
People as owners
It is more a question of the right to decide freely the utilisation of the resources than their best use perceived by those in central control
By Dr Pervez Tahir
Pakistan faces a constitutional crisis as serious as the one which led to the creation of Bangladesh. The reference is not to the ping pong called the 17th amendment. Nor is it an allusion to the extremism that has challenged the writ of the state. The former is a bone of contention between the PML-N through the Prime Minister and the accidental President. The latter threatens to take over the state, not to break it up. But the arrogant denial of the provincial rights has brought at least one province to place secession at the centre of the debate. While the centralised state is unwilling to let the devolution at local level continue there are demands to reconstruct the present provinces.
In not too distant past, people all over the country accepted Afghan refugees with open arms. The same people were seen resisting the entry of IDPs from Swat in their territories.
The whole thing is a surprising replay of the East Pakistan story. A province producing the main foreign exchange earner was economically exploited to the hilt through a process described in the PPP's foundation documents as internal colonisation. It had higher population, but parity rather than population was the criteria not only for resource distribution but also in political representation and voice. It was argued that a rupee invested in West Pakistan, meaning effectively central Punjab and Karachi, had greater return than a rupee invested in East Pakistan. As a result, West Pakistan would generate greater revenue and develop the capability for a larger return flow of resources to East Pakistan. A reverse flow, however, invariably comes against what economists describe as a process of 'cumulative causation'. In simple words, this is the tendency of resource flows and investment to concentrate in the region where an initial big push is mounted. For example, the flow of foreign aid to the ex-colonies has been nothing compared to the loot and plunder by the colonial powers.
Similarly, West Pakistan settled down to 'losing' East Pakistan rather than allow a reverse flow of resources. When the extent of disparity of income per capita between East and West Pakistan became repugnant even to some saner elements in West Pakistan, greater resources were offered and constitutional guarantees were given for the removal of disparity by a stipulated time. Such offers ring hollow at a time when the region on the receiving end becomes conscious of its economic rights. It becomes more a question of the right to decide freely the utilisation of the resources than their best use perceived by those in central control. The people in Punjab wonder why the Baloch have been against building the Gwadar port. Why do they blow up gas pipelines? The answer is that these were not their decisions. Packages after packages have been offered to develop Balochistan by the elected as well as unelected central authorities. The packages do not even appease the Baloch not merely because they eventually turn out to be less than serious projects, but because the Baloch want to control their resources rather than being subjected to generosity. Punjab controls its wheat, its prices and its movement. Why can't Balochistan control its gas and minerals? Sindh is not allowed its sovereignty over Thar coal. Planning Commission, which should concentrate on planning, has been positioning to directly implement a coal gasification project in Thar. Electricity woes of Pukhtunkhawa are too well known to bear repeating.
The great Indus food machine may come to a grinding halt if the trust deficit in the arrangements for water distribution continues to widen at an increasing pace. Water Accord of 1991 was a voluntary agreement among the elected representatives of the provinces. That is why it can still work. What is required is transparent monitoring by IRSA and a constitutionally sanctioned renewal of political consensus in the Council of Common Interests rather than the ad hoc forum of the inter-provincial coordination committee.
While Water Accord holds because of a political agreement, the NFC has not been so lucky. The last politically agreed NFC also dates back to the time of the Water Accord. The 1997 NFC was hatched by an unelected caretaker regime and its continuation in the present incremental form was ordered by a military dictator. Unconnected with devolution and in the absence of a new NFC award, provincial share is being increased annually at an arbitrary percentage. Rather than acting on the provincial consensus of a 50:50 vertical distribution, the then Prime Minister/Finance Minister put province against province by asking them to come up first with a consensus formula on the intractable issues of horizontal distribution. There are now elected governments at all levels but they cannot agree on who should chair the NFC.
Provincial Finance Commissions (PFCs) for provincial-local distribution add a new dimension to the problem of resource distribution. The lofty goals of Devolution Plan 2001 were to devolve political power and decentralise administrative and financial authority to accountable local governments for good governance, effective delivery of services and transparent decision-making through institutionalised participation of the people at grassroots level. However, decentralisation of service provision has led to inefficiency as the responsibility was devolved to local level without fiscal devolution.
A formula-based system determines the distribution of the Provincial Consolidated Funds. Local share constitutes effectively the current budget for the devolved provincial functions, and 2.5% GST in lieu of octroi. Poorly collected property tax proceeds are transferred to local governments after deduction of an exorbitant 15% collection cost and by adjusting other 'dues'.
In an important sense, it was an incomplete decentralisation. A non-political process was adopted for an essentially political undertaking. Among other things, devolution from provincial to local level and none from federal to provincial level has determined the attitude of the politicians towards the local government system. Non-party elections reinforced the hostile political attitudes. The democratic spirit of the system was undermined by indirect elections except for Union Councils. Ironically, this lone directly elected tier had the least powers.
A backlash resulted from linking the exercise of devolution of power with the design of local government system and mixing up of the coercive levers of the state -- police and magistracy, land and revenue administration, tax collection and distribution of spoils. Again, there was a lack of political will to part with direct controls at the provincial -- a mirror image of what the centre did to the provinces. As a matter of fact, policy making and regulatory roles at provincial level are nothing compared to direct controls when it comes to projection of power.
Some other issues include responsibility and authority -- functional and territorial jurisdictions as finance follows functions, accountability -- upwards, horizontal and downwards to citizens, transparency and public disclosure, participatory planning and development.
Mega cities like Karachi and the urban triangle of Lahore, Gujranwala and Sialkot have, according to local governance expert Reza Ali, a different set of problems. Much like the chartered presidencies of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in colonial days, they require separate police commissionerates and special fiscal dispensation.
The problem is that no level of government can pay for itself under the present arrangements for the apportionment of revenues. For instance, the federal government spent Rs 1,663 billion in 2007-08. Its revenue was Rs 1,381 billion. Similarly, the provincial expenditure was Rs 598 billion and revenue only Rs 82 billion. The situation at local level is worse.
What is to be done? There is no going back to 1979. For that is going back to the colonial era, minus its public friendly elements. Recognise the political nature of the problem. Provincial autonomy continues to be the central issue in moving towards (or away from) a tenable state. The solution to these problems must have the following elements.
*Three levels of constitutionally defined governments -- local, provincial and federal
*What can be decided and implemented at a lower level should not be decided and implemented at a higher level
*Two lists of subjects -- local and federal
*What is not in the local and federal lists to be the domain of the provinces
*Federal list to be limited to defence, foreign affairs, communications, conduct of monetary policy, international trade, elections, nationality and immigration
*Local list to remain as at present
*Each level of government to have a major tax all to itself. No NFC is needed.
*Federal list can be managed by customs and income tax including agricultural incomes
*Properly collected property related taxes should generate enough revenue for local governments
*All other taxes including sales tax to be provincial
*All taxes to be collected by an autonomous body, transferring proceeds directly to the concerned level of government after deducting an agreed collection cost
True, even desired fiscal decentralisation may not lead to effective spending, avoidance of corruption, rent-seeking or prevent elite capture; prevailing disparities might worsen. But the foremost objective of decentralisation is to let the people govern themselves. All other objectives are subsidiary to this objective.
devolution
Tiers of governance
The federal apathy towards the empowerment of the constituent units has meant that whenever the issue of solving Pakistan's political problems through administrative mechanisms are raised, popular ownership is absent
By Adnan Rehmat
About 65 years after it became a distinct political identity, Pakistan it seems is till caught in a time warp of priorities that are more related to the early years after countries have formed rather than consolidating the entrepreneurial strengths that several generations of political ownership brings. That hones purpose, identity and resilience of nations. Like a confused magician that accidentally curses himself, Pakistan finds itself unable to break the awkward spell and move forward. For the first couple of decades the country grappled with how much overt-centralization should be piled onto centralization; hence the merger of provinces into One Unit and Two Units – East Pakistan and West Pakistan. After intermittent, half-baked debates it is now again debating whether more provinces means a more better Pakistan, or less.
In the intervening decades three military rulers -- Generals Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf -- tried micro-devolution: creating a cadre of polity at the district level in a thinly disguised effort at counterveiling and diluting the influence of national-level political parties. Ayub cut up Fatima Jinnah's Muslim League, Zia throttled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's People's Party and Musharraf emaciated Benazir Bhutto's PPP and Nawaz Sharif's PML-N. Ayub and Musharraf even launched national 'reconstruction' mechanisms -- Bureau of National Reconstruction by the former and National Bureau of Reconstruction by the latter -- (as if it was as easy as constructing DHAs) that really aimed at raising a parallel cadre of party-less politicians beholden to the generals for their rise.
Tiers of pain
Five decades of focus on the districts as the turf of political battles between the politicised military and militarised political parties meant that it became a zero sum game between the two forces: each time the military retreated to the barracks to bide their time for another comeback, the political parties emaciated the district tier of governance as a symbol of their political potency. Throughout these see-saw decades, the province as a tier of governance in Pakistan was largely untouched as a subject of administrative or political reform and served as the base for political parties to launch their bid for national ascendancy.
All this while, as district and provincial boundaries served as the battle lines between the military and the political parties, the resolution of other key political issues relating to the politico-legal frontiers of non-provincial regions remained unattended. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), Pakistan-administered Kashmir (AJK) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) remain lesser political entities within the larger territory of sovereign Pakistan as recognised by the United Nations and are considered sub-par with the provinces. This means either no representation in parliament and control over their resources or no self-rule. This has festered deep unrest, despair and distrust.
The federal apathy spread over decades towards the empowerment of the constituent units has meant that whenever the issue of solving Pakistan's political problems through administrative mechanisms are raised -- divide the provinces to build capacity to resolve local issues locally -- popular ownership is absent without which lasting change cannot come. The debate is dominated by hostility and distrust among the political stakeholders. The military has traditionally wanted weak (or worse, pliant) political parties at the federal level as it becomes easier to manipulate them at the provincial level where their centre of gravity lies. These parties are then squeezed (much like a pincer movement that is a military tactic) further from the district level by largely non-political, clan-based cadres of nazims that find a powerful patron in the khakis.
Divide and rule
To survive and re-establish claim over the political domain, the political parties in Pakistan traditionally have had to rebuild their political bases, each time the military retreats to the barracks, at the provincial level (PPP largely in Sindh, southern Punjab and pockets of Balochistan and NWFP; PML-N largely in Punjab and NWFP; ANP in NWFP, MQM in Karachi/Hyderabad) if they are to make a solid advance in the numbers game in the national parliament. Thus devolution, as defined by Pakistan's military dictators, does not suit the political parties. If the top 10 political parties in the country are to rule either the country or the provinces, it is in their interest to keep the current political-administrative boundaries intact. It is primarily for this reason that there is no incentive for the political parties to want division of the current provinces into a greater number of provinces.
For a moment let's assume Sindh becomes two provinces. PPP would lose Karachi/Hyderabad to MQM political ownership; even if it retains the remaining Sindh, it would lose a much more prosperous (where the money and jobs are) chunk of Sindh. So why would it want a division of the province? If Punjab is divided into north, central and southern portions, PML-N would take the north and central hands down. It would, however, lose south. Even if PPP 'gets' south Punjab, the 'loss' of south Sindh (Karachi/Hyderabad) is much greater in terms of politics-economics framework. Likewise, if NWFP is divided, PPP will be the biggest loser as PML-N will grab the Hazara region and the rest will be 'taken' by ANP. Thus PML's 'gain' in NWFP will be neutralised by its 'loss' in south Punjab. As for Balochistan, neither PPP nor PML-N or even MQM or ANP will be a 'winner' -- the 'sub-Baloch' provinces will 'go' to two or three mainstream nationalist Baloch parties.
Top down, not bottom up
An argument can be made that Pakistan's failure to keep its own, merely 25 years after its creation (when paradoxically a majority seceded from a minority to create Bangladesh), and the subsequent political-legal disparities of the country's multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-linguist groups means that any resolution will have to come from the top not from the bottom (as the military always does it). This will, for the reasons mentioned above -- lack of consensus even among larger, national political parties, what to speak of smaller groups -- not happen in a hurry. Administrative and management ease must be effected to improve governance and empower people before a consensus can be developed. This can come only through a minimum of two steps: (i)there has to be a drastic devolution of power from the federation to the provinces; and (ii)the 'non-provinces' (FATA, FANA and AJK at least; ICT could get the status that Washington has in US and New Delhi in India) must become equal political entities (since their merger with current provinces is as impossible as a division of current provinces) as the four official provinces at present.
Things are falling apart in Pakistan and the centre is holding with only great difficulty. Self rule, self-control over their respective natural resources, financial autonomy and equal representation in Senate plus population-determined representation in the National Assembly are the only way for Pakistan to go forward from here. In the case of AJK and FANA, who is stopping their constituents from being equal citizens of Pakistan (at least in terms of equal political and economic rights) pending a final resolution of their legality dispute? Only when it treats the seven 'provinces' (or call them whatever you will) -- Balochistan, NWFP, Punjab, Sindh, FATA, FANA and AJK; and for goodness sake give them proper names representative of their regional identity, which could be ethnic, linguistic, nationalistic or cultural -- anything but 'northern' or 'federal' plus ICT -- will the state of Pakistan be an equal and just federation whose constituent units will want to be associated with the country. Once this happens, and there is just political ownership, people will not mind additional administrative units/provinces. In other words, before devolution must come evolution.
The News:SundayJuly 19, 2009
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