Mayoral elections underway in Sindh

KARACHI: Elections for the seats of mayor and deputy mayor, as well as chairman and vice chairman of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), along with other municipalities of Sindh went underway on Wednesday.

Polling will run from 9am to 5pm. However, voters present in the polling station will be allowed to cast their votes beyond 5pm.

The power struggle convulsing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement notwithstanding, Waseem Akhtar, the party’s candidate for mayorship of Karachi, is set to win the election and rewrite history, officials and the contesting political parties agree.

Akhtar, who has been in prison since July 19 after an Anti-Terrorism Court dismissed his pre-arrest interim application in the terrorists’ treatment case, was brought under tight security to the KMC building to cast his vote.

Based on MQM's numerical strength in the KMC Council — 214 members out of the total 308 elected members — Akhtar’s victory in the mayoral election is a foregone conclusion.

Other major contenders for the Karachi polls include the PPP-led six-party alliance, particularly in the South and West DCs. Other parties of the alliance are: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam-Fazl and Awami National Party (ANP).

The MQM is likely to emerge victorious in the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) elections. The party has nominated Syed Tayyab Hussain for mayor and Sohail Mashhadi for deputy mayor’s slot. PPP has nominated Pasha Qazi and Hasan Ali Jatoi for the contest.

In Mirpurkhas, PPP’s Mir Anwar Talpur and Mir Ahmed Khan Talpur have won unopposed for the district council chairman and vice-chairman slots. The MQM has majority in the municipal committee, which comprises 51 votes.

In District South, the joint opposition parties have fielded Malik Fayyaz of PPP for chairman and PTI’s Mansoor Shaikh for vice chairman against the MQM’s Israd Ali and Parveen Begum.

In District West, the MQM has fielded Izharuddin as chairman and Gul Faraz Khan as vice chairman. The opposition alliance’s candidates are: PML-N’s Asif Khan and PTI’s Azizullah Afridi.

“More than 2,000 voters will elect mayors, deputy mayors, chairmen and vice chairman for more than 100 municipal bodies of the 20 districts, including five of Karachi, across Sindh,” Tanvir Zaki, the provincial election commissioner earlier told Dawn.

“The deputy commissioners have assured us that they have arranged the required security in and outside the polling stations,” said Zaki, adding that police and Rangers had been entrusted with the task of maintaining peace during the proceedings.

Zaki said the election of mayor and deputy mayor for the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and chairman and vice chairman of the DMCs would be held separately – the head and the deputy of these municipal bodies.

However, on Karachi’s District Council (KDC) and the rest of Sindh, they would be held in pairs – a single vote will go to the head and the deputy.

There are two ‘pairs’ belonging to the PPP and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf as they are contesting against each other for the top slot in KDC.

There are nine districts where candidates have already won the elections unopposed ─ Sukkur, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Jamshoro, Tando Muhammad Khan, Matiari, Sujawal, Thatta and Karachi Central.

Of the remaining 20 districts, ‘partial elections’ are being held on the municipal bodies of Khairpur and Thatta.

Officials in the ECP said elections in several municipalities of these districts were not being held because of court proceedings.

Tanvir Zaki, the election commissioner, said there were a total of 41 locations where polling stations had been established in the 20 districts.