After merging of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, there are multiple challenges and tasks for both, the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. The biggest one is holding fair, free and transparent party-based local government elections in the seven tribal regions, enabling tribespeople to freely elect their representatives for local union councils.

The aim of holding local government elections is devolution of powers in true spirit as until now all administrative, financial and political powers were exercised by the political agent.

The government had extended Political Parties Order 2002 in 2011 that enabled all the political parties to run election campaign there.

In 2012, the Fata Local Government Regulation 2012 was drafted to conduct local bodies’ election there, but it was not extended, apparently due to the poor security situation in Fata.

In the past, efforts were made to hold local government polls but the process failed to achieve the required results.

Former military dictator, Gen Pervez Musharraf had extended Fata Local Government Regulation to Fata in 2002 through the then Governor Lt-Gen Iftikhar Hussain Shah, but instead of conducting direct elections, the government through the political agents in 2004 nominated some blue-eyed tribal elders as Agency Councillors.

Each of the councillors was paid Rs5000 monthly stipend, but none of them were either given powers or development funds. The tribespeople had long been demanding equal rights to people of rest of the country.

The rise of militancy in fata caused a huge damage to these under-developed seven tribal regions -- Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan in the last two decades.

This created awareness and political activism among the tribespeople and the demand for more political rights and mainstreaming of Fata got a momentum in the past few years or so.

The demand for Fata’s mainstreaming was decades old but the Pakistan Muslim League government finally secured this significant achievement by merging it with KP.

Besides other recommendations proposed by the Fata Reforms Committee, formed by the prime minister in November 2015, the committee had recommended that after the rehabilitation process of the displaced tribespeople is completed, party-based local government elections should be conducted in Fata before the end of 2017.

Fata’s merger with KP got delayed due to opposition of the bill by two political parties: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman group and Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.

Since Fata is now a part of KP, the government is required to hold local government elections as per KP Local Government Act 2013.

Former KP minister for local government and rural development, Inayatullah Khan, tells TNS that under Article 140A of the Constitution, KP is the first province that practically devolved powers and transferred political, administrative and financial powers to the districts.

"Our LG system was the most effective and powerful as KP was the first province that devolved its powers and gave 30 per cent of Annual Development Programme to the districts," says Inayatullah Khan, suggesting that the government should introduce amendments to the present LG system.

In KP, Provincial Finance Commission was formed for fair distribution of resources where four nazims -- two district and two tehsil nazims -- represented the districts. These four nazims were selected by all the district and tehsil nazims.

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"Since the creation of Pakistan, the districts were transferred Rs9billion while the KP government in the past three years provided Rs50 billion to the districts," says the former LG minister.

According to Khan, the World Bank and United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) had appreciated the LG system in KP. However, before conducting local government elections, the former minister suggests de-limitations in Fata. Around 44000 councillors were elected in the local government election in KP.