Seventy-nine years after independence, the people of Pakistan are still governed largely from above. The unfinished democratic task is to bring government closer to the people.

Pakistan completed its 79 years of independence on August 14, 2026. Much has changed since 1947. What has changed remarkably little is the distance between ordinary citizens and those who exercise power over their lives.

A resident of a village, town or metropolitan neighbourhood does not experience the state primarily through the parliament or a provincial cabinet. The state appears through the school his children attend, the hospital where his family seeks treatment, the roads he travels through, drinking water supply, sanitation, policing, land records, building controls, public transport and waste collection. These functions are overwhelmingly local in character. However, we continue to govern most of these from above.

This is among the least discussed failures of our constitutional evolution. Political independence transferred authority from a colonial government to a sovereign state. Democratic independence should subsequently have transferred meaningful power from distant governments to citizens in their communities. That second transition remains incomplete.

The debate currently raging about creating additional provinces illustrates the problem. The argument has considerable emotional appeal: provinces are too large, capitals too distant and administrations too unresponsive. Dividing them, it is claimed, will bring government closer to citizens. The diagnosis is partly correct. The prescription is questionable.

Creating additional provincial capitals does not necessarily bring government to the people. It may simply replace one distant bureaucracy with several smaller ones. A citizen needing clean water, a functioning school or a properly maintained street does not require another governor, chief minister, provincial assembly, secretariat and ministerial bureaucracy. He requires an accountable local government having the authority and the resources to deliver those services.

Our constitutional framework already points towards this solution. Article 140A of the constitution obliges every province to establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to elected local representatives. The words are important. The constitution does not contemplate municipalities functioning merely as provincial departments. It envisages political, administrative and financial devolution. This constitutional command remains largely unfulfilled.

The Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010 [18th Amendment] substantially strengthened provincial autonomy and removed the Concurrent Legislative List. This was historically necessary in a federation scarred by excessive centralisation. The problem was not that power travelled from Islamabad to the provinces. It was that devolution largely stopped at the provincial capitals.

Lahore should not become Islamabad for the Punjab, nor Karachi for Sindh, Peshawar for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Quetta for Balochistan. This is where constitutional political economy offers a different way of looking at governance. The question is not simply how many administrative units Pakistan should have. It is where power should reside, who should control the resources and to whom decision-makers should be accountable.

Centralisation produces predictable incentives. Provincial legislators become intermediaries for drains, roads, transfers, postings and local development schemes instead of concentrating on legislation and provincial policy.

Bureaucracies control resources that should be subject to elected community oversight. Chief ministers acquire enormous discretionary influence. Citizens learn that access to services depends upon political connections rather than enforceable institutional arrangements.

The consequences are visible throughout Pakistan. A recent assessment of fiscal federalism found that the local-government share of total government spending declined from around 10 percent in 2005 to approximately 4.7 percent in 2024. It also concluded that local governments remain fiscally dependent, institutionally unstable and effectively subordinate to provincial discretion. We speak continuously about democracy while starving the democratic tier closest to citizens.

The current proposal to create as many as 18 provinces should therefore be approached cautiously. History holds a warning against treating territorial engineering as a substitute for governance reform.

One Unit was once justified partly in the language of administrative rationalisation. Instead of resolving political tensions, it intensified grievances among Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns and others and was ultimately abandoned.

There may eventually be a legitimate case for creating one or more new provinces where historical identity, administrative viability, public consent and constitutional requirements justify them. Article 239(4) of the constitution makes alteration of provincial boundaries difficult by requiring consent of the affected provincial assembly through a two-thirds majority, in addition to the constitutional majorities in the parliament. Such fundamental restructuring cannot sensibly be undertaken as an administrative shortcut.

International experience is also instructive. Switzerland’s small cantons work not simply because they are small. They possess deep institutional traditions, substantial fiscal autonomy and powerful mechanisms of citizen participation. Germany makes its Länder workable through strong institutions and fiscal equalisation rather than repeatedly redrawing boundaries.

Pakistan cannot import Swiss cantons by changing names on a map. It can, however, learn the principle behind them: power and responsibility should remain as close as practicable to the citizen. That principle requires a new local-government compact.

Local elections must occur at constitutionally protected intervals and should not depend upon the convenience of provincial governments. Elected councils should have secure tenure. Functions must be clearly assigned so that citizens know which government is responsible when schools fail, streets flood or garbage remains uncollected. Provincial Finance Commission awards must become regular, transparent and rule-based rather than discretionary.

Importantly, local governments need meaningful own-source revenues. Property taxation is the obvious starting point. A local tax works best when citizens can see the relationship between what they pay and what they receive. If a municipality collects property tax and fails to provide roads, drainage and sanitation, accountability can be immediate. The mayor or council cannot blame Islamabad or an Iinternational Monetary Fund programme.

This is democracy in its most practical form. Pakistan also needs powerful metropolitan governments. Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi-Islamabad’s urban region, Peshawar and Quetta cannot be efficiently governed through fragmented authorities, provincial departments, development agencies and overlapping jurisdictions. Metropolitan transport, land use, water, waste, environment and urban development require integrated elected institutions.

Rural Pakistan needs the same transformation through district, tehsil, village and neighbourhood structures adapted to provincial circumstances. This could also become an employment and development programme for Pakistan’s enormous youth population.

Instead of concentrating aspirations on a limited number of federal and provincial jobs, empowered local governments could employ and develop thousands of planners, engineers, teachers, health workers, environmental specialists, IT professionals, agricultural extension workers and community administrators. The government should become a means of delivering services rather than distributing patronage.

There is also a national-security dimension. Alienation grows when citizens encounter the state mainly through police, bureaucracy or distant political elites. Genuine self-government gives communities a stake in the constitutional order.

This is particularly important in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where peace ultimately requires political participation and credible civilian institutions alongside security measures. The legislators in Azad Jammu and Kashmir should also think on these lines

The proposition is larger than municipal reform. Pakistan’s first 79 years concentrated on constructing and preserving the state. The next phase must concentrate on empowering the citizen. We do not need to weaken the federation to strengthen the provinces, nor weaken the provinces to empower districts. A mature federation distributes power because each tier performs functions appropriate to it. Islamabad should perform federal functions.

Provinces should govern provincial matters. Cities, districts and communities should govern what is genuinely local. Independence cannot remain concentrated in capitals.

The democratic promise of 1947 will remain unfulfilled until self-government reaches the street, village and neighbourhood where Pakistanis actually live. The next stage of independence requires governments closer to the governed.

The writers are lawyers, adjunct faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences and members of the Advisory Board of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics