The perception of provincial inequality among voters in Sindh is an important reason why the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) – that spearheaded the passage of the 18th Amendment which has resulted in the devolution of many federal powers to the provinces – retains a strong vote base here. It also explains why the party’s narrative of political rights for Sindh continues to resonate with voters in the province. It may further explain why poor service delivery does not hurt PPP electorally in Sindh.
The survey shows that provincial inequality is also a big issue for the respondents in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. More than two-thirds of respondents from Balochistan state that their province gets less than its rightful share of the federation’s resources; 55 per cent of the respondents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hold the same view about their own province. This suggests that the devolution of power from the centre to the province is likely to remain an important political mandate for the parties that will win electoral majorities in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in the upcoming elections. This, in turn, will shape the debate around the 18th Amendment and the National Finance Commission award for the distribution of federal resources among provinces.
In Punjab, on the other hand, the debate on regional inequality is about the distribution of resources within the province. The issue of regional inequality has been gaining momentum among politicians and political workers in the southern districts of the province in recent times. While the 2018 election manifesto of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) commits the party to developing “a national consensus on the creation of a South Punjab province on administrative grounds,” PPP’s 2018 manifesto gives a clear commitment to carving out a new province in Punjab “in accordance with the Constitutional Amendment Bill already passed in the Senate in 2012-13.”
The basis for these demands is the claim that the provincial government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) did not ensure regional equality in access to funds for southern Punjab in spite of the high poverty rates that prevail in that region. PMLN, however, has consistently maintained that it has ensured regional equality in the allocation of development funds and provincial resources.
What is the view of the ultimate arbiter of this debate: the voter in Punjab? The Herald-SDPI survey shows that only 19 per cent of the respondents from the province believe that northern Punjab (including central districts) gets less than its fair share of resources. This changes dramatically when it comes to southern Punjab: approximately half of the respondents from the province believe that its southern region gets less than its rightful share of provincial resources.
Over 40 per cent of PMLN’s own supporters and a similar proportion of the undecided voters in Punjab also feel the same way. This proportion is even higher for those who support either PTI or PPP in Punjab: 60 per cent of them hold the view that southern Punjab is treated unjustly in resource distribution.
All this suggests that a large number of voters in Punjab perceive that regional inequalities exist. Has PMLN missed an opportunity to mobilise votes in southern Punjab by not addressing this issue in its 2018 manifesto? A clear answer will emerge after polling day.
What is clear is that whichever party forms the next Punjab government will have to address political demands for restructuring the fiscal and governance framework of the province.
Ali Cheema is Associate Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives. Asad Liaqat is a PhD Candidate in Public Policy at Harvard University.
Data coordination: Namrah Zafar Moti, Sarah Dara and Aliyah Sahqani.
Sampling and data analysis: Ahsan Tariq, Fatiq Nadeem and Ahsan Zia Farooqui.
Data collection: Institute of Research, Advocacy and Development (IRADA), Punjab Lok Sujag, Nari Foundation, Yusra Jabeen, Sharjeel Arshad, Tariq Ahmed, Gulab Ahmed, Muhammad Arif, Qadir Dino, Zafar Musayni, Saddam Jamali, Mumtaz Sajidi, Fataullah Kasi, Gohar Rafique, Aimal Khan, Muhammad Arif, Aziz Khan, Abid Sherani, Masood Achakzai and Abdullah Jan.
This survey has been financially supported and supervised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), designed by the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) and carried out by the Herald magazine.