PESHAWAR: After a near-decade of death and destruction triggered by militancy, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa heaved a sigh of relief, in large part, due to Zarb-i-Azb in the militants’ last bastion of North Waziristan. There has been considerable improvement in law and order and security across the province, bringing in its wake some sense of normalcy to the lives of people ravaged by incessant bombings and suicide bombings.

However, terrorists have not been wiped out. The suicide bombing in Hayatabad Township that took 24 lives showed that militancy was down but not out. The number of extortion cases that had seen a dip is again on the rise as well.

The improved security environment must have been one of the factors in encouraging the KP government to go ahead with local government elections. After going back and forth on committing and then back-tracking on its commitment to hold the elections, the government finally went ahead.

It was, by all standards, a massive exercise. Held in May, the local government elections were the biggest in terms of the number of seats contested. So huge was the number of candidates that the Election Commission of Pakistan ran out of election symbols, leading many candidates to complain about the funny and awkward nature of the symbols.

In all, more than 40,000 people were elected to 3,000 village and 500 neighbourhood councils. The KP local body system is closer in nature and contours to the one introduced by Gen Pervez Musharraf, with the difference that while he had also devolved administrative powers along with development to the district nazims, the PTI-led coalition devolved only development powers to the elected representatives.

Bani Gala is to KP what Bilawal House is to Sindh. Likewise, Pervez Khattak is to Imran Khan what Qaim Ali Shah is to Asif Ali Zardari.

While the elected district representatives, particularly those from the opposition parties, chided the government for depriving them of their powers, but there are those who strongly argue that it was necessary to keep the district administrative system de-politicised.

The elections threw up a mixed mandate, much to the disappointment of the PTI, which had left no stone unturned to win it. Still, it managed to get their own mayors or district nazims elected in nine of the 26 districts by striking political bargains.

But the party did not do that bad. It managed to win 256 of the 978 seats, not a bad showing for a party that has been in power for two years. Still, the results were far below its expectations, given the euphoria generated largely through social media.

Nonetheless, the system in KP is probably the best in that it will have a huge infusion of funds flowing to the districts, tehsil municipal committees and the massive network of the village and neighbourhood councils – in rural and urban areas, respectively.

This is indeed a remarkable achievement for a government promising to bring about change. But in the larger scheme of things, that change may as well be hampered by what many within ruling coalition government believe, is PTI chairman’s over-reliance on and preference for bureaucracy and the police in managing the day-to-day affairs of KP.

This may not be entirely wrong. Many political observers believe that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak is to Imran what Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah is to former president Asif Ali Zardari or lately Bilawal Zardari. In KP’s case, they point out, all important decisions and presentations are made in Bani Gala, just like Sindh, where all important decisions are made at Bilawal House.

Even cabinet ministers privately grumble over the influence wielded by the bureaucracy and the police, given the strength they derive from Bani Gala rather than the Chief Minister House. ‘Khan Sahib’, as he is called by his party and coalition leaders, may have his own cogent reasons for doing so, but micromanaging things through the bureaucracy or remote-controlling the government from Bani Gala, they say, has undermined their authority.

One of the other key issues that continue to haunt the KP government is the slow and under- utilisation of development funds. Projects are slow to take off and there is a virtual run for a spending spree towards the end of each financial year to avoid surrendering or allowing the funds to lapse.

The government’s inability to initiate what one cabinet minister described signature projects that the PTI could really feel proud of, is another issue that continues to be debated within the corridors of power. Its failure to initiate mass transit system or other similar projects in Peshawar and other places, and its failure to attract foreign investment through road-shows in Karachi and Dubai are a case in point.

There has been legislation galore in KP, where the Assembly has done more legislation than any other assembly in the country, but while governance has improved, implementation has been slow, including the implementation of the health reforms, stuck in legal quagmire, leading to growing public scepticism.

But while some within the government are wary of Khan’s “micro-management”, there are others within the party who believe that he needed to focus more on KP than “wasting his breath” about alleged rigging and manipulation – politics of dharna and agitation, they say, has done them more harm than anything, given the presence of a weak opposition in KP. Time, they say, is running out fast. Delivery and not rhetoric will help them in the next elections, they argue.

The opposition parties, particularly, the ANP, which had suffered a humiliating defeat, mired by charges of corruption, succeeded in staging a comeback in its previous strongholds of Mardan and Swabi and formed its own district governments there.

The contest in Swabi in particular was more interesting, where the ANP was pitched against Shahram Tarakai’s Awami Jamhouri Ittehad. Not only, Shahram’s party lost the elections badly in his home district, he also lost his own union council.

In Charsadda, home to Walibagh, where the ANP had lost all provincial and national assembly seats in the 2013 elections, the party emerged with the largest number of seats, prompting the PTI and Aftab Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party to strike a political compromise to form a government in the district with help from Jamaat-i-Islami.

Under the terms of the agreement between PTI’s nominee would head the district for two years, followed by the QWP candidate for the remaining last two years of the four-years term of the existing district government.

The PTI suffered similar fate in Swat, where it had done remarkably well in the last general elections. The PML (N) regained its foothold not just in Swat but also in the northern districts of Shangla and Mansehra.

Fazlur Rehman’s JUI bagged Kohat and Hangu, while the PPP too managed to eke out a success in Lakki Marwat and Malakand. Elections for the district of Bannnu’s nazim were stayed by the Peshawar High Court, while elections in Kohistan could not be held due to legal wrangling over its bifurcation.

It has been mandated by law that thirty percent of the development funds would go to the districts under a formula worked out by the Provincial Finance Commission. For the current financial year, Rs. 30 billion have been transferred to the local bodies – Rs. 13 billion to the village and neighborhood councils and Rs. 8.5 billion each to the districts and tehsil municipal authorities.

There are some small problems including the issue of salaries for the nazims of the district, tehsil and village and neighborhood councils and operating expenditures involving acquiring offices on rent, appointment of sectaries and phone and other expenditures, but considering the Rs. 1.67 billion the districts and the TMAs used to receive until last year, the massive cash flow outdo the operational costs.