In the Limbo

While Sindh rulers continue to delay local elections, opponents do not agree with the reasons they cite

KARACHI: There are signs that partners in the ruling alliance of Sindh province – the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) – have decided to appoint a new administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) instead of going for the local bodies’ polls to elect a new Karachi mayor, at least in the near future.

Informed insiders told Bol News that the allies have almost reached a consensus that for the time being they would like to run Karachi’s affairs through the administrator, who will be from the MQM-P, and will replace the current administrator, PPP’s Murtaza Wahab.

In the meantime, moves are underway to amend the Sindh Local Government Act (SLGA) 2013 so as to add to the powers of the mayor, as and when she/he is elected. In a recent meeting the Sindh cabinet approved a summary to amend the law through an ordinance. According to the summary, the next mayor would have the added powers to act as the chairman of major civic bodies including the Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and the Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB).

Senior leader of MQM-P and former Mayor, Wasim Akhtar, while referring to a directive of the Supreme Court, told Bol News that his party wanted a mayor who will have “real authority”, and for this they had been holding talks with their senior partner in the alliance, the PPP.

Against this backdrop, the Sindh government has once again expressed its inability to conduct the second phase of the local bodies’ elections in the divisions of Karachi, Hyderabad and Thatta for another three months. It conveyed this in a letter sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) last week. The reason it cited was inadequate security due to the engagement of security forces in the flood affected areas.

The Sindh government further stated in the letter that the Inspector-General (IG) Police had in a communication informed the government the while there was not enough police force available to ensure security of elections in Karachi, police in other districts was still on flood duties and providing security to polio vaccination teams in the region. Additionally, 5,000 Sindh police personnel had been placed on the disposal of the federal government to control the emerging law and order situation in Islamabad. Also, police security would be needed for the upcoming International Defense Exhibition (IDEAS-2022), opening in Karachi on 15 November.

The second phase of the local bodies elections has already been put off thrice, triggering angry reactions from the opposition groups. The opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Shaikh, said that the government was using police shortages as an excuse to avoid elections. He said the government’s move to send police to Islamabad to stop the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s long march was in clear violation of its legal obligation to hold elections. “The Sindh government should be ashamed of what it is doing,” he said.

Head of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, has meanwhile filed a petition with the Supreme Court, requesting it to order the ECP to announce a final date for local government elections so that the residents could exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives.

When approached for his comment, Hafiz Naeem said, “the PPP government in Sindh has avoided holding the elections on the pretext of rains, then on the pretext of flood affected people, and now on the pretext of the shortage of the police personnel.”

He gave the government a seven-day deadline to announce an election date, failing which the JI “will hold protest demonstrations and sit-ins across the country as well as outside the Sindh Assembly building.”

President of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Syed Mustafa Kamal, when contacted, said that the flood situation had proved that the country needed an effective local government system. Had such a system been in place, the aid would be delivered at the doorsteps of the flood victims, without causing administrative disruptions elsewhere.

A leader of the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Sardar Abdul Rahim, when asked for comments, jeered at top PPP leader, Asif Zardari, saying, “Zardari League should accept its defeat. It is running away from the elections, but the pro-democratic forces will not let him and his party get away with these tactics.”

Provincial Minister, Saeed Ghani, when confronted with these remarks, said, “the PPP is not running away from the elections. Whenever holding of elections becomes feasible, we will give them a surprise by winning and bringing our own mayor in Karachi.”

He said that the delay in the local bodies elections was an administrative issue and not a political one. The Sindh government had already sent a letter to the ECP explaining the reasons for it.

On its part, the coalition partner, MQM-P, has been pushing for the delimitation of certain constituencies ahead of elections, saying that holding elections without fresh delimitations would be meaningless. The party has filed as many as six petitions in the Sindh High Court, challenging previous delimitations in various union council wards that it said were made with malicious intentions.

The petitions are set for hearing on 15 November.