Radio News Network Radio News Network
By Najib Ahmad
ISLAMABAD — The Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) December announcement to hold long-delayed local government elections in Islamabad was initially welcomed as a step toward restoring grassroots democracy. However, the process now risks being postponed for a fifth time after the federal cabinet amended the Islamabad Local Government Act, a move that requires fresh delimitations. For residents of the capital, this disruption is not merely procedural. It reflects a deeper pattern in which local democracy is repeatedly deferred, municipal authority remains centralised, and decision-making stays insulated from public scrutiny—conditions that have allowed elite capture to reshape Islamabad’s ecology and civic life.
This pattern was highlighted in a landmark Islamabad High Court (IHC) judgment (June 08, 2025), which ruled that the Capital Development Authority (CDA)—a development body tasked with urban planning—had unlawfully assumed municipal functions such as water management, sanitation, and street-level services. The court ordered that these responsibilities be handed over to the elected Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC), underscoring that citizens’ basic rights cannot be bypassed by unelected bureaucrats. Yet, subsequent amendments by the federal cabinet dissolved the IMC and replaced it with a township-based system, further delaying the transfer of powers and leaving citizens without a clear municipal authority.
Islamabad has spent much of its history without empowered local governments. Municipal functions that should rest with elected representatives have instead been absorbed by development authorities operating without electoral accountability. According to journalist and analyst Riaz Missen, this governance structure has enabled elite capture to become systemic. “When decision-making moves upward and away from citizens, development stops responding to public needs and begins serving entrenched interests,” he argues. Overlapping institutions, he adds, ensure that responsibility is diluted while power remains concentrated.
The ecological consequences of this arrangement are most visible in water management. Islamabad is often portrayed as a water-scarce city, yet hydrologist Dr. Hassan Abbas rejects this narrative. “The Islamabad–Rawalpindi region receives over 1,200 millimetres of rainfall annually. The problem is not availability but the destruction of natural water systems,” he explains. The capital sits atop the Soan syncline, a natural geological basin that historically absorbed rainfall and replenished groundwater. Streams descending from the Margalla Hills once recharged aquifers and fed Rawal Dam with relatively clean water.
Over the past three decades, unchecked urban expansion has steadily dismantled this natural infrastructure. Catchments have been encroached upon, recharge zones sealed under concrete, and streams converted into sewage drains. Housing societies and commercial projects have proliferated with little regard for hydrology. “When streams are treated as waste channels rather than water assets, groundwater contamination becomes inevitable,” Dr. Abbas warns. The paradox of Islamabad—abundant rainfall alongside unsafe drinking water—is thus a product of governance failure rather than natural constraint.
Elite capture is equally evident in the city’s approach to mobility and public space. Islamabad’s infrastructure increasingly caters to automobiles, privileging speed and visibility over safety and inclusion. Flyovers, underpasses, and signal-free corridors dominate the landscape, while footpaths, pedestrian crossings, and cycling lanes are either absent or unusable. This design logic reflects the priorities of those who experience the city from behind windshields. “A city planned only for cars is a city planned against its people,” Dr. Abbas observes, noting that women, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities bear the brunt of such exclusion.
The erosion of civic life follows naturally. Public spaces shrink, neighbourhoods are fragmented by highways, and walking becomes hazardous. Informal settlements are evicted in the name of development, while elite enclaves expand with state support. Missen notes that without elected local governments, citizens lack any institutional forum to challenge land use decisions or environmental degradation. “Elite capture reshapes cities by privileging capital over community and control over consent,” he says.
Islamabad’s experience underscores a broader truth: ecology and democracy are inseparable. Protecting water systems, designing inclusive mobility, and sustaining civic life require governance rooted in local accountability. Repeated delays in local elections—now reinforced through legal amendments and fresh delimitations—only deepen the democratic vacuum.
Unless power is devolved to the people who live in the city, Islamabad will continue to grow outward while hollowing out from within—ecologically depleted, socially fragmented, and civically diminished.
