Power is not only about who governs but about how close that governance feels to the ordinary citizen. History teaches that legitimacy comes not just from constitutions and parliaments, but from the ability of people to see their government in action, repairing the street outside their home, running the school where their child studies, ensuring the water that flows from their tap is clean. When governance remains distant, hidden in capital cities, it hardens into an abstraction. When it is close, familiar and accessible, it begins to feel like democracy in its truest sense.
Much speculation surrounds whether Pakistan should be divided into 12 provinces instead of the existing four. Advocates believe more provinces would mean better representation, improved service delivery, and balanced development. Yet beneath the surface, the proposal risks consuming political energy, economic resources, and administrative focus at a time when the country desperately needs stability and recovery. There is an alternative, one more sustainable, cost-effective, and rooted in democratic principle, strengthening local governments under Article 140-A of the Constitution.
Strengthening local governments won’t solve every challenge or replace constitutional reform and national unity but it is a practical, affordable and democratic alternative to creating more provinces.
The logic of creating new provinces may appear appealing, but the practice is fraught with difficulties. Every new boundary invites contestation, every new assembly requires an army of legislators, ministers, bureaucrats, vehicles, houses and protocols. Pakistan’s fragile economy, struggling to move from stabilisation to growth, can ill afford such diversions. More importantly, the politics of division risks inflaming rivalries rather than healing them, as seen in federations where redrawing maps became a permanent source of unrest rather than resolution.
Local governments, on the other hand, offer proximity without the burden of multiplication. A councillor or nazim lives in the same street as those they represent, unlike a provincial minister ensconced in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, or Peshawar. In practical terms, this closeness translates into responsiveness: a councillor who shares the same water shortages, traffic jams, and garbage dumps as their neighbours is far more likely to act on them. Citizens everywhere judge democracy not by speeches in parliament but by the quality of services they touch every day.
Global experience reinforces this truth. In Germany, the federal system rests on powerful municipalities with full control over local infrastructure, schools, and healthcare, enabling high standards of service delivery. In Turkey, the rise of metropolitan municipalities, particularly in Istanbul and Ankara, played a decisive role in both service delivery and the training of national leaders. In India, the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments gave panchayats and municipalities constitutional backing, resulting in grassroots representation and the rise of a new generation of leaders. Even in advanced democracies such as the United States, cities and counties play an outsized role in education, policing, healthcare, and taxation, showing that federal strength often flows from local empowerment.
After the 18th Amendment, power flowed from centre to the provinces, but it stopped there. Instead of empowering districts and councils, provincial rulers hoarded authority, budgets and decisions for themselves. In doing so, they turned local governments into hollow shells, ruining the very spirit of devolution. If Pakistan were to take local governments seriously, the dividends could be transformative. Imagine schools and district hospitals run directly under elected local representatives who face the scrutiny of parents and patients daily. Consider water, sanitation, and waste management overseen not by distant provincial departments but by accountable city councils. Think of roads, bridges, sports facilities, and public transport managed locally with transparency and urgency. Fiscal decentralisation would allow councils to raise and spend their own resources, with provincial finance commissions ensuring equity between developed and backward districts.
Critics argue that local governments may lack capacity or expertise. This is less a reflection of inherent weakness and more of deliberate neglect: over the decades, local systems have been designed to be temporary, suspended when convenient, or underfunded compared to provincial structures. With genuine investment in professional staff, modern technology, and fiscal autonomy, local governments can match or surpass provincial efficiency. The key is consistency, ensuring they are permanent, constitutional and beyond the whims of chief ministers.
There are other political gains too. Local governments broaden participation and inclusion. Reserved seats for women, minorities, peasants and labourers mean voices often excluded from provincial politics gain representation. They also act as nurseries for future leaders, many of today’s most seasoned politicians in countries like US, UK, Germany, Turkey and India began their journeys as mayors or local councillors. For Pakistan’s young population, local councils could become training grounds for leadership, replacing dynastic politics with merit and performance.a
There is also the matter of taxation and trust. Citizens everywhere are more willing to pay taxes when they can see tangible results. A tax collected by a councillor and spent on repairing a local road is far easier to accept than one sent to a provincial or federal treasury with little visible return. This trust is the foundation of modern states and it is best cultivated at the level where citizens live and work. Strengthening local governments won’t solve every challenge or replace constitutional reform and national unity but it is a practical, affordable and democratic alternative to creating more provinces, redrawing the bond between citizen and state in every district, tehsil, town, and union council. Politics is about nearness, people want power that listens and cares. New provinces only move the distance; local governments can erase it. In them lies both efficiency and the true renewal of democracy.
The writer is a Ph.D in Political Science and a visiting faculty member at QAU Islamabad. His area of specialisation is political development and social change. He can be reached at zafarkhansafdar @yahoo.com and tweet@zafarkhansafdar.