Oct 30
3:00AM to 05:00pm
38, Street No: 86 Embassy Road,G-6/3, Islamabad Pakistan
We argue that holding election, increasing polling ratio, and/or running party based elections do not suffice and may not restore benefits attached with decentralization and that the basic criteria of success of decentralization is the pivot on which votes are polled…
With the advent of 21st century, a new consensus on political democracy emerged and consolidated around the globe. Aligning to the global position, developing countries moved to the representative forms of government. Noticeably however, the character of democracy, political contestation and voting practices in developing countries remain markedly dissimilar to those practiced in and advocated by developed states. It stretches to the consensus that the transformation towards participatory mode of ruling in developing countries, initially, was an outcome of the hurried attempts by authoritarian states to exhaust the accumulated anger of the sections of population previously disenfranchised. Arguably, taking of the decentralization road in Pakistan was the prerogative of an authoritarian dictatorship to gain legitimacy through building clientelistic networks at grass roots level. The divergences in demands of devolution and objectives of governments have de-politicized the whole process of devolution and seriously undermine the consolidations of democratic politics at local levels. The concerns on the democratic participation, however, earn a serious consideration if the vote is exchanged for short run (immediate) personal gains at the cost of collective gain of the society/community. Against this backdrop, we look into dynamics of political associations underlying the voting patterns for local governments.
Speaker:
1)Dr. Sajid Amin Javed, Research Fellow SDPI
2)Asad Ur Rehman, Project Associate SDPI
Panelists :
1) Dr. Khawaja Idrees, Head School of Public Policy, PIDE. (Academia)
2) Mr. Amir Khan Goraya, Head Democratic Governance Unit, UNDP (NGO/Civil Society)
3) Advocate Aftab Alam, (Media law and Policy Expert)
4) Iftikhar Sherazi (Dawn News)
5) Ms. Romina Khurshid Alam(Parliamentarian)
5) Dr Zubair Iqbal (Policy Researcher associated, Bahria University)
Dr. Sajid Amin Javed
Asad Ur Rehman