I have been watching elections since 1964 – the year Field Marshal Ayub Khan and Fatima Jinnah squared off against each other – and, in one form or the other, participating in them since I came of age. This record is no testimonial to my civic-mindedness. It only reflects my rural origins.

In Islamabad and the posher parts of Pakistan elections are an irrelevance. They have nothing to do with the lives of ordinary people.

In the other Pakistan, comprising the stretching hinterland and the congested cities, elections are a necessity. Anyone aspiring to local self-importance can ignore them only at his peril. Ignore the political process – regardless of what form it takes -and you count yourself out of local affairs.

The authors of the Devolution Plan say all this will change after their new system is ushered in. Power from the top will filter down to the grassroots enabling people to become masters of their own destiny. It's a beguiling thought but at odds with the reality of military rule.

General Musharraf is not about to draw in his fangs. The brave new world he and his scientists are creating differs only in matters of detail from previous models. The substance is the same with elections and local councils only obscuring the real thing within.

Why hold elections at all? I have often wondered at their utility. They involve the mass of the people in an exercise both tortuous and painful. While raising exaggerated hopes, they confer no political sovereignty. Nor do they alter the contours of power, a lesson successive generations of Pakistanis learn at a cost which involves the loss of innocence and the onset of an all-pervasive cynicism.

In passing, note may be taken of one of the good things about the Devolution Plan. It wrests planning and development from the mandarins of the provincial capitals and brings these precious commodities to the districts. This is a step forward. But it is a far cry from the dispersal or distribution of power about which such a great song-and-dance is being made.

I don't know whether the Mansteins of the Reconstruction Bureau realise it but what they are offering the people of Pakistan is a fresh compact: sovereignty in local affairs in exchange for a distancing from national affairs. Which is a bit like the deal offered the Chinese people by the Chinese Communist Party: get rich and improve your living standards but don't question the party's right to rule. The Chinese comrades have delivered on their promise. Can the Pakistani comrades do the same?

The one nagging fear about the new paths to local grandeeism being charted by the Devolution Plan has to do with the quality of the Nazims and the role of the police. If the Nazims who will step into the executive shoes of the deputy commissioners start settling political scores we might as well start composing the obituary of the incoming order. More than the Nazims it will be the police department which will help make or mar the new system.

One general conclusion from the local elections the military's whiz-kids can safely draw. In Punjab, the powerhouse of Pakistan politics, the electoral strength of Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League is well on the way to being broken. Rawalpindi Division, the heart of the army's recruiting belt, was a Nawaz Sharif stronghold. As evidenced by the local election results, not any longer. With other factions coming to the fore the glue holding the Muslim League together is coming apart.

This is an interesting development. Political strength first came to the Muslim League through local elections ordained by General Zia. Now it is losing the same, and experiencing a gradual political meltdown, through local elections sponsored by another general. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Change sword to local elections and you have an epitaph for the Nawaz League.

But the fruit shed by this once powerful party has not fallen into the lap of the pro-Musharraf League led by Mian Azhar. The grief of the one has not translated into the strength of the other. As a rule local bigwigs have scored well where they have been strong on the ground. But there has been no wave favouring one party or the other. Gen Naqvi should be pleased. The depoliticisation he and his fellow-generals sought, and which has been dear to the heart of every military ruler, is taking place.

The national press in this respect has got the picture wrong. In saying that the same political faces or the same political surnames have scored big, the metropolitan papers have missed the point. It is not local politicos, the kind who score big in local elections, whom the military dislikes.

Organised politics, the life-blood of political parties, is what the military mind hates. For instance, what does it matter to Commander 10 Corps if PPP nominees have gained ground in Rawalpindi? As members of a rudderless party it will be hard for them to resist going over to the side of authority, whatever be the shape of that authority. Local councillors need funds for development. They cannot survive on principles alone.

The problem for the military is over the long-term. A closed political system, such as Ayub Khan's was and Musharraf's promises to be, breeds frustration and anger. The middle class, the motor of political thought and activity in most countries like Pakistan, feels left out.

What is more, a closed political system also breeds cronyism and corruption. From Indonesia to Nigeria the most conspicuous feature of military regimes is the corruption which leaves their country dry. There is much talk of cleanness at the top of the Musharraf government. Wait till complacency sets in.

Military men don't admit it, perhaps they don't even understand it, but the great cyclical leaps in corruption we have had have all been under military regimes. Not because soldiers are more corrupt than civilians but because army rule, by destroying democracy, removes a check on administrative corruption. Yes, I can hear angry cries about the felonies of politicians. But a point lost on sophisticated urbanites is the check-and-balance role of any political system, no matter how corrupt. A myth beloved of generals is about the watchdog role of the military. Sooner than anyone realises, the army becomes part of the problem.

What are the people left with? Another coffin of shattered dreams. When their anger breaks out, the system performs a cleansing act, removing the Ayub Khans and Suhartos but without touching the essentials. Another election is ordained, new alliances are made and the air is full of talk of a new beginning. New faces emerge – the Benazir Bhuttos and the Megawati Sukarnos – with whom the people identify their hopes. But nothing changes. Only the past re-invents itself in fresh colours.