Islamabad in search of democracy!

Pakistan’s debate on new provinces and empowered districts has acquired official weight. Ministers argue over the federation’s outer map while a simpler failure sits at its centre. The federal capital has neither an elected territorial government nor a functioning local council.

Islamabad is not a side issue. It reveals a recurring pattern: devolution is promised, then withheld by whichever executive benefits from withholding it. The city from which Pakistan is governed is itself governed without its citizens. Any plan for 12 or 15 provinces should pass this test before a new line is drawn.

The case of Delhi, being a counterpart, is instructive, not because its model is flawless, but because India addressed the capital-status question constitutionally. The 69th Amendment in Indian Constitution inserted Article 239AA, establishing a Legislative Assembly and Council of Ministers headed by a chief minister; Delhi’s assembly has 70 elected seats. It may legislate on applicable State and Concurrent List subjects except public order, police and land, while parliament retains overriding authority.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has 250 elected wards. Delhi thus possesses what Islamabad lacks: a second tier for territorial policy and a third for neighbourhood services. Delhi’s arrangement is contentious and frequently litigated. That does not justify dismissal: it shows that power has legal and political forums instead of disappearing inside a secretariat.

In its 2023 services judgment, India’s Supreme Court described a triple chain of accountability: civil servants to ministers, ministers to the legislature, and the legislature to the electorate. Islamabad breaks that chain at every link.

Pakistan’s Constitution lists Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) as part of the federation. Article 32 encourages elected local government; Article 140A compels each province to devolve authority but omits ICT, not being a province. More decisively, Article 142(d) gives Parliament exclusive power over all matters in federal areas outside a province. Under Article 50, Parliament comprises the President, National Assembly and Senate; the power is not the National Assembly’s alone.

An ICT Assembly with primary legislative competence requires constitutional amendment, not ordinary legislation. That amendment must satisfy Article 239 of the Constitution.

Section 219(4) of the Elections Act expressly requires local elections within 120 days of a term’s expiry in ICT. Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad’s term ended on February 14, 2021; no successor exists.

This was no administrative accident. Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaf failed to hold elections on time; the Pakistan Democratic Movement administration and present coalition continued the evasion. Union councils moved from 50 to 101 and then 125, while structures changed whenever the Election Commission approached polling.

Thousands filed nominations for February 15, 2026, but Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government (Amendment) Ordinance, 2026 replaced MCI with three town corporations, installed open-ended federal administration and empowered it to levy taxes, fees and tolls. The ECP withdrew the schedule. A law supposedly enabling elections became an instrument for preventing them.

A report in an English daily crystallises the contradiction. The federation is pursuing two parallel but paradoxical routes. Ahsan Iqbal’s committee proposes an empowered ICT government with a second tier and a third-tier component, transferring most functions except law and order and master planning.

The committee has now placed a definite elected structure behind that proposal: a separate 27-member ICT Assembly comprising 21 directly elected members, five women on reserved seats and one minority member. It would elect a chief executive, called either chief minister or mayor, accountable to the Assembly. Law and order and master planning would remain with the federation, while the territorial legislature would sit above, and not replace, elected local councils.

In parallel, the Interior Committee’s bill restores bureaucracy-controlled, non-party town corporations subject to binding federal instructions. The Presidential Ordinance that cancelled the February polls lapsed on September 5, 2026, but the bill revives its model. The prime minister will decide which track prevails. One recognises citizens as sovereigns; the other reorganises their subordination.

The incentive is plain. Islamabad’s land, planning powers, contracts and development budgets confer patronage. A Grade-20 officer combines the offices of Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman and chief commissioner. An elected body introduces an actor the federal executive cannot fully control, especially when an opposition party may win.

Ministers prefer an administrator they can direct; bureaucracies prefer residents as applicants rather than principals. Every party invokes grass-roots democracy when excluded from power and discovers technical defects once it controls the notification. This is why provinces and districts cannot be treated as interchangeable. A province is a constituent unit with an assembly, executive, Senate representation and standing in the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and National Finance Commission (NFC); a district is local government under provincial law.

Multiplying either without clearly defining functions, finance and consent does not bring government closer to citizens. It relocates the same incentive problem to more capitals. Islamabad should be the pilot: if the federation will not share power where no provincial boundary or asset must be divided, why trust its promises elsewhere?

A constitutional amendment can create a capital-status settlement modelled on, but improved beyond, Delhi: an elected ICT Assembly and executive responsible for education, health, transport, environment, housing and territorial taxation; narrowly defined federal control over the diplomatic and security enclave, strategic land and policing; and a judicial mechanism for resolving conflicts.

Unlike Delhi’s fragmentation, an integrated metropolitan authority should coordinate water, waste, roads, parks, building control and climate resilience. Below it, directly elected metropolitan, town and union councils must receive protected functions, staff and finance. Terms must be fixed and successor elections held before expiry. A caretaker administrator must neither legislate nor impose new taxes.

Amendments enacted after an election schedule begins should apply only to the next cycle. Formula-based transfers, meaningful own-source revenues, open budgets and audited CDA land transactions should complete the accountability chain.

The Supreme Court held in MQM (Pakistan) v Federation, PLD 2022 SC 439 that Article 140A requires empowered, not ornamental, local government. That principle should be written expressly for ICT. National Assembly representation cannot substitute for territorial or municipal government: an MNA neither passes a city budget nor answers for a broken sewer. Distinct functions require distinct democratic mandates.

Pakistan does not need 15 new provinces to demonstrate devolution. It needs an elected capital government and local councils where Parliament sits. If the Centre cannot trust 2.5 million residents to choose those who govern their services, land and budgets, its promises elsewhere are merely theatrical.

Administrative units without political and financial authority multiply offices. New provinces may be justified where history, viability and consent converge, but no map can cure a ruling elite’s refusal to share power. Hold Islamabad’s local elections, entrench its elected second tier and protect its third. Only then should new lines be drawn.

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Huzaima Bukhari, lawyer and author, has been Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Senior Visiting Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). She also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 2003.

Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds an LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.