To the Pakistan Peoples Party,
I am writing this letter not as a political opponent, nor as a commentator interested in point-scoring, but as someone who still believes that your party understands the language of democratic struggle better than most. You have earned that credibility over decades, often at great cost. That is precisely why this letter is being written with care.
The Pakistan Peoples Party has long presented itself, quite convincingly, as the custodian of the 18th Amendment and the broader idea of devolution of power. In many ways, that claim is justified. Few constitutional changes in Pakistan have reshaped the state as decisively as the 18th Amendment did. It corrected historical imbalances, restored provincial autonomy, and reasserted parliamentary supremacy. These are not small achievements.
Yet, with the passage of time, something curious has happened. Any conversation about how the 18th Amendment is implemented is now treated as a question of whether it should exist at all. A critique of execution is quickly framed as an attack on democracy itself. This reflexive defensiveness, while understandable given Pakistan’s history, has also had the unintended effect of freezing a necessary debate.
The spirit of the 18th Amendment was never meant to stop at provincial capitals. Devolution was envisaged as a continuum, from the federation to the provinces, and from the provinces to local governments. Article 140-A is unambiguous in intent, even if it was left open in interpretation. Provinces were to establish elected local governments and devolve political, administrative, and financial responsibility to them. What was left to political wisdom was not whether to empower local governments, but how to do so.
More than a decade later, that journey remains incomplete, not because the Constitution was unclear, but because power, once acquired, is rarely surrendered voluntarily.
What is particularly striking today is that the argument for empowered local governments is no longer coming from expected quarters alone. The Pakistan Muslim League (N), despite governing the country’s largest province, has begun publicly advocating stronger local government systems. One may agree or disagree with PML-N on many matters, but this position is noteworthy. Governing Punjab comes with enormous administrative and political comfort. There is very little incentive for a provincial government to dilute its own authority unless it believes that democracy is strengthened by doing so.
If the Pakistan Peoples Party were to grant Karachi’s mayor full administrative and financial autonomy, not selectively, not symbolically, but in earnest, the results would speak for themselves
It also quietly suggests something else: that devolving power is not necessarily a sign of weakness or insecurity.
Sindh, unfortunately, continues to operate on a different logic, one where local governments exist, but authority remains carefully elsewhere. Nowhere is this more visible than in Karachi.
The city has an elected mayor, yet governance remains fragmented in a manner that almost appears intentional. The mayor’s real, enforceable authority is largely confined to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation. Key civic functions—water, waste management, and building regulation—sit in a grey zone. Titles are given, chairmanships announced, but decisive power remains with provincial departments and ministers.
Take building regulations, for instance. When tragedy strikes, as it recently did in Karachi, public anger naturally turns towards the city’s mayor. Yet the Sindh Building Control Authority, responsible for approving and monitoring buildings, does not report to him. Its director general reports to the provincial government. If the mayor is concerned about unsafe constructions in his city, the institutional route available to him is, quite literally, to write letters.
This is not empowerment. It is plausible deniability.
The same applies to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation and the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board. To set the record straight, Sindh’s local government framework, including the 2021 amendments passed by the provincial assembly, does not vest the mayor with executive authority over these institutions. He does not control their budgets, does not appoint or remove their senior management, and does not issue binding operational directives. The law limits his role to coordination, consultation, and the receipt of reports, while administrative control remains with provincial departments. This distinction matters. When service delivery fails, public accountability shifts to the elected office, even though legal authority has not. That gap between expectation and power is where governance breaks down.
It is also worth asking why we rarely hear Karachi’s mayor articulating a bold, sweeping vision for the city. The more convenient explanation is to assume a lack of ambition. The more honest one is to recognise that vision usually follows authority. It is difficult to speak loudly about transforming a city when the tools required to do so are structurally out of reach.
This arrangement does not weaken the mayor alone; it weakens your party in Pakistan’s largest and most politically consequential city.
What makes this all the more ironic is that the Pakistan Peoples Party has articulated a very different vision before. Your 2008 manifesto, drafted under Benazir Bhutto’s leadership, spoke clearly of local governments based on modern patterns seen in established democracies around the world. That promise recognised a simple truth: cities thrive when they are governed locally, transparently, and decisively.
That vision did not imagine mayors as ceremonial figures navigating a maze of provincial permissions. Yet several key departments, including the Karachi Development Authority with its Master Plan division, Traffic Management, Disaster Management, Mass Transit (Transport), and Law & Order, remain under provincial authority, further limiting the mayor’s ability to implement a coherent vision for the city.
There is also a political opportunity here that remains unexplored. If the Pakistan Peoples Party were to grant Karachi’s mayor full administrative and financial autonomy, not selectively, not symbolically, but in earnest, the results would speak for themselves. Let him succeed or fail on his own terms. Let governance, rather than structural confusion, shape voter opinion.
Urban voters respond to delivery, not rhetoric. A mayor with authority changes not just infrastructure, but political memory. Voting patterns in Karachi would tell a very different story if the city were genuinely run from within.
This is not an argument against the 18th Amendment. It is an argument for completing it. Devolution that stops at the provincial level is only a partial victory. True decentralisation requires trust—trust in cities, in local leadership, and in the idea that democracy deepens when power is shared rather than guarded.
I write this as someone who believes that the Pakistan Peoples Party does not need to defend the 18th Amendment as a sacred relic. It needs to honour it as a living framework. Doing so would not diminish your legacy; it would extend it.
Yours sincerely,
A well-wisher