The Chief Commissioner of Islamabad exercises the powers of a provincial government. So would it not be better to make Islamabad a province and have an elected Chief Minister here?

The official website of the Islamabad Administration tells us that the Chief Commissioner exercises his powers as a representative of the provincial government.

A Chief Minister at least has an opposition to deal with. The Chief Commissioner has no opposition at all. A Chief Minister has to face an assembly. The Chief Commissioner has only subordinates before him. There is no Leader of the Opposition to spoil the show. Elected Chief Ministers are, for all practical purposes, merely there for appearances. The real fun belongs to this unelected Chief Minister.

What is astonishing is that neither the Constitution nor any parliament has given the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad powers like those of a Chief Minister. This arrangement, in which a provincial ruler exists in the shape of a Chief Commissioner, was introduced during the colonial era, in 1897, through the General Clauses Act. We have held on to it to this day.

In 1980, through a presidential executive order, we handed Islamabad over to an unelected bureaucrat and then simply forgot that democracy was also the name of a bird worth knowing.

Governments came and went. The Constitution was amended again and again. The contours of the system were redesigned countless times. We kept singing the golden sayings of democracy morning and evening. Yet no one has ever seriously considered this basic question: how can a government servant, who is unelected, be given powers equivalent to those of a Chief Minister?

Islamabad is the only city in Pakistan whose residents have no right to vote for a provincial assembly. Senators are elected from here, but there is no provincial assembly here whose members they can vote for. There is no local government either. A provincial assembly can still be created here. The result is that the feeling of being a stepchild has seeped into the veins of the city.

Urban Islamabad, meaning the Islamabad of the settlers, is largely made up of the elite, so its voice is heard, at least to some extent. But rural Islamabad has been rendered almost completely ownerless. Among the locals (Red Indians) of rural Islamabad, who would dare go to the Chief Commissioner’s office even for his darshan, let alone an actual meeting?

Urban Islamabad constitutes only 30 percent of the city, yet it consumes more than 90 percent of the budget. The Islamabad of the locals........

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