Better Late Than Now

Rifts between the MQM-P and the PPP appear as the former calls for new delimitations and ultimately seeks to delay LG polls

KARACHI: As the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) is rallying its breakaway factions in an attempt to demonstrate its power on January 9—the protest day—to demand fresh delimitations ahead of the local body elections later this month, the party’s main goal is undoubtedly to have these polls postponed.

According to a senior party leader, however, the MQM-P has no plans to boycott the elections even if its demands are not met.

Apart from the MQM-P, Mustafa Kamal’s Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Farooq Sattar and his supporters, and Afaq Ahmed’s Mohajir Qaumi Movement Pakistan have all stated their intention to take part in the January 9 protest.

Posturing is nothing new for the MQM-P, which began the New Year by warning the ruling coalition that if the second phase of Karachi local government elections were held without new delimitations, it would leave the coalition.

Soon after the threat, Rana Sanaullah and Ayaz Sadiq of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) dashed to Karachi to attend a huddle at Bilawal House chaired by former president and co-chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Asif Ali Zardari, and attended by MQM-P representatives.

The meeting did not produce much for the MQM, as the PPP informed the party that the process of new delimitation is time-consuming and could take months, and that the party doesn’t have the ambit to undertake the process.

Insiders in the MQM admit that the demand for new delimitations is unlikely to be met before the local body elections in Karachi and Hyderabad on January 15.

“We understand that the delimitation exercise will take several months and will not be held before January 15. Essentially, we want elections postponed because we believe Imran Khan’s party, riding on a wave of popular sentiment, will make significant gains in elections,” a senior MQM-P leader told Bol News, requesting anonymity.

Despite the fact that popular sentiment is currently negative, the party leader believes that going to the polls now is critical for both the MQM and the PPP.

“At the same time, we want to push for some rectification in the delimitations issue, which adversely affects the MQM vote bank,” the senior MQM-P leader continued, explaining why the issue was brought up at this juncture.

In the August 2016 elections, the MQM-P received approximately 64.5 percent of the votes cast to elect their mayor, Waseem Akthar, who was brought from jail to the KMC Building to participate in the mayor election. He was ready to take over the city from behind bars, where he was facing sedition and terrorism charges.

Akthar repeatedly complained about the non-allocation of funds as mayor of Karachi from 2016 to 2020.

In his farewell speech, Akthar complained that he had been crying for four years about Karachi’s administrative issues but that neither the president, the prime minister, the chief secretary, nor the local government minister had responded to his numerous letters.

If local government laws are not amended to give local bodies more power, the incoming mayor will be singing the same song as his predecessor.

Several district councils in Karachi and Hyderabad have been merged with urban areas (delimitations), giving the PPP an unfair advantage.

When these delimitations were implemented, the MQM-P was in opposition and couldn’t do much, according to the senior leader.

“The irony is that we face exclusion at the decision-making centres where we do not have representation,” he added.

The provincial assembly is a legislative body that can use legislation to prevent union council mergers in urban areas, but the ruling PPP is simply not interested.

Traditional MQM voters are also unimpressed with the MQM-P and continue to see Altaf Hussain as the true power center.

The low voter turnout in recent by-elections following boycott calls from London demonstrates that most voters still adhere to Greenwich Mean Time.

The PPP, on the other hand, stated that it cannot initiate new delimitations because it is now solely under the jurisdiction of the ECP.

“We carried out the delimitation exercise in 2013, after which MQM went to court, and eventually the court barred us from doing so,” PPP Karachi president Saeed Ghani told Bol News.

Ghani stated that the MQM has exhausted its appeals at the appellate forum on the delimitations issue, adding that the PPP has also gone to the appellate forum. “Why would our people go to appeals if we had favoured the party?” he remarked.

Following last year’s floods, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) went to court against the postponement of local body elections, and the ECP set January 15 as the date for polls.

“We have no choice but to carry out ECP orders,” Ghani told Bol News weekly.

The PPP appears to be optimistic about its chances in the upcoming local government elections.

On the eve of the New Year, Pakistan’s foreign minister and PPP chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, informed party workers in Karachi that the new mayor of Karachi would be from the PPP.

The performance of KMC and the hard work of party workers will, according to Chairman PPP, help the party win local body elections and elect its mayor.

“Karachi as a whole is waiting for the elections, and the candidates are sick of campaigning. Karachi and Hyderabad residents are in desperate need of a local government system,” Bilawal said.

The JI Pakistan, which has previously held the mayor’s office on several occasions, is suspicious of both the PPP and the MQM, claiming that both parties are faking the rift and want to postpone the elections.

“The election boycott is not yet decided,” Federal Minister for Information Technology Syed Aminul Haque told Bol News, but he did not say whether the MQM-P wants the polls postponed.