WISE - a non-governmental organisation working for the empowerment of struggling women has urged the government to conduct local bodies' elections in Punjab without any further delay by ensuring at least 33 percent representation of women as it is the only way to empowering marginalised segment of society. The demand was raised by Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) Executive Director Bushra Khaliq and WISE policy advisor Abdul Khaliq at a roundtable consultative session titled "Deepening Democracy and Local Government in Pakistan" with a selective group of journalists at a local hotel on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, the fate of the local government system in our country is hanging in the balance for long. It can be said that this system doesn't even exist like the way it should be," said Abdul Khaliq, adding that the government should immediately revive this system by ensuring at least 33 percent representation of women on reserved seats. He claimed that the Punjab Local Government Act (PLGA) 2019 has so many loopholes because it was formulated without taking civil society members on board. The input of civil society activists in devising policies of public interest, especially marginalised segment is crucial, he added.
Khaliq said they have reports that the government is reviewing this Act, but this time again the relevant stakeholders were not taken on board. Pointing out flaws in PLGA, he said there is no reserve seat for women under the Village Council system. Generally, women feel very comfortable when they discuss their issues with the same gender, he added.
"For contesting the local bodies' elections, the government has also increased the age limit from 21 to 25 years, which is regrettable," the advisor said, adding that whenever the civil society members tried to convince the concerned government officials to remove this condition, they simply rejected their point by arguing that "mature people" would serve better.
In the past, all the political parties had used student unions in the past to secure their successes in electoral process. The issue is not that youngsters lack capacity to run public affairs efficiently. The actual issue is that the politicians do not like the way the youth question their performance, he argued. "There is democracy but unfortunately there is no decentralization of powers."