EDITORIAL: Good governance begins where the citizen meets the state. That point of contact — the local government — has been systematically eroded in Pakistan.
The Speaker of the Punjab Assembly is right to call out this democratic vacuum, and right again to warn that no system of governance can work when the lowest tier of representation is routinely dismantled. His demand for legal protection of local bodies is not only valid; it is long overdue. Yet it must also be said that the blame for this persistent failure lies squarely with the country’s political elite, including his own party.
For most of Pakistan’s history, local governments have existed only when it suited those in power. By the Speaker’s own admission, Punjab has had no functional local system for nearly half of its post-independence years. The reason is not institutional weakness, but political design.
Every major party has preferred centralised control to genuine devolution. They have denied cities and districts not just administrative autonomy but financial independence, ensuring that all meaningful authority remains with the chief minister and cabinet. Local representatives are elected sporadically, disbanded frequently, and almost never empowered in between.
This cycle has hollowed out the democratic process. Without functioning councils, citizens have no mechanism for oversight, service delivery becomes politicised, and the bureaucracy assumes powers that elected representatives were meant to exercise. The Speaker’s lament that governance is impossible without empowered local institutions is, therefore, an indictment of decades of political hypocrisy. Parties that campaign on democracy routinely suffocate it at the grassroots.
The Election Commission’s statement that local polls in Punjab cannot be held before the middle of next year only compounds the dysfunction. A constitutional right delayed by “technical prerequisites” is a right denied. Procedural readiness is no substitute for political will. The ECP’s responsibility is shared with the provincial government, but it is the government that must ensure that the legal and administrative framework is in place. The Punjab Local Government Act 2025 will mean little unless the province meets its own deadlines for delimitation rules, notifications, and maps.
Local governments are not an adjunct to democracy; they are its foundation. Every functioning federation — from Germany to India — demonstrates that national stability rests on empowered municipalities and districts. Devolution ensures not only efficiency but accountability. When garbage collection, water supply, land use, and primary education are handled by local councils rather than provincial secretariats, the citizen gains visibility and recourse. In Pakistan, that link is broken, and the result is alienation and paralysis.
The Speaker’s bipartisan resolution in the Punjab Assembly offers a moment of consensus that must not be wasted. It is one of the rare occasions when both government and opposition agree that the absence of local governance undermines the social contract itself. But the measure of sincerity will lie in implementation. The next step must be to legislate financial autonomy for local bodies — guaranteed transfers, transparent audits, and the right to raise limited revenue. After all, without resources, representation is meaningless.
Pakistan’s political culture has long equated devolution with weakness. The reality is the opposite. The stronger the grassroots, the more stable the Centre. Effective governance requires diffusion of power, not its hoarding. For a country of over 240 million people, centralised management is neither efficient nor sustainable. The Speaker’s remarks are a timely reminder that democracy is more than elections; it is about institutions that survive them.
Pakistan cannot continue with its head buried in the sand, pretending that provincial control substitutes for local participation. The path to stability lies in rebuilding the tier that was meant to bridge the state and its citizens. If that link is not restored, no amount of rhetoric about reform or democracy will matter. The foundation has to hold, or the structure will keep collapsing.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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