We witness mysterious moves and unpredictable scenarios unfolding in this country as general elections draw closer. The chessboard is laid, and pawns are readied to move at the command of the movers and shakers. The Sardars and their sons and nephews from the hapless lands of Balochistan, Sindh, and South Punjab are shoved into the ranks of one mainstream political party, which was actually reduced to a regional political group in the general elections of 2013 and subsequent electoral contests.
The footprint of these powers is also visible in the political and electoral process in the city through the MQM’s consistent subservience to them to produce desired results.
The Metropolis has experienced frequent cycles of bloodletting, killings, agony, and misery caused by ethnic factionalism and conflicts since the advent of Zia’s martial law and the encouragement of the politics of ethnicity in the Metropolis. Karachi took many long years to shake off the grip of fear stemming from target killings, arson, extortion, and shutdowns.
Strangely enough, ethnic politics refuse to die down and are mysteriously revived as elections in the country or the Metropolis draw near. Some ethnic groups are washed, purified, scented, and cloaked in a saint's apron to be imposed on the megacity.
The hapless citizens of the city have witnessed the bloody politics of an ethnic group since its inception in 1984. It waged a long internecine war within its groups and engaged in bloody conflicts with almost all other ethnic segments of the populations of the megacities of Karachi and Hyderabad. We lost prodigal sons of the city, including Hakeem Saeed, Salahuddin, Shahid Hamid, Tariq Azeem, and scores of police officers in target killings.
The peaceful people of the city experienced the enduring agony of collecting the mutilated bodies of their missing youth from forsaken parts of the city, tortured, killed, and trussed in gunny bags. We witnessed unbelievable scenes when young MQM workers on motorbikes took rounds of the busy markets, firing a couple of shots in the air to shut the city down on one pretext or another.
The security forces of the country carried out clean-up operations in the mid-1980s, the 1990s, and most recently. They unearthed torture cells and heaps of lethal weapons hidden in water tanks, graveyards, and old houses.
Karachi is a vibrant city, already under new leadership. The powers that be must not weaken local governance by artificially supporting political groups already slipping into decline
All the king’s parties are destined to disappear from the political scene. We witnessed the melting away of the Republican Party of President Iskander Mirza, the Convention Muslim League of President Ayub Khan, the Pakistan Muslim League of Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo, the National People’s Party of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, formed at the behest of President Zia, PML (Q) of President Pervaiz Musharraf, the Balochistan Awami Party, and the MQM. These parties had to face inevitable break-ups sooner or later owing to irreconcilable political differences within the political clusters under their banners as a result of coercion.
The three mainstream political parties, PTI, PPP, and Jamaat-e-Islami, contested for the mayoral office of Karachi and Hyderabad. The Jamaat appeared ahead of its rivals in Karachi in organisation, election campaign, and mobility. However, the people did not favour their candidate for the mayoral office, Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman.
The PTI concentrated on public mobilisation and depended on the overall popularity of its founding chairman without divulging its candidate. The PPP, being in power, positioned an administrative paraphernalia of its trust in strategic positions.
The MQM demanded the re-delimitation of local government constituencies, changes in electoral rolls, and the appointments of officers of its trust as administrators of Hyderabad, Karachi, and certain districts of the megacity as a result of agreements signed with the PPP and PML (N) before switching over to the PDM. The PPP accepted the MQM’s major demands except for delimitation and postponement of elections, which also involved the Election Commission of Pakistan and the Sindh High Court.
The MQM sought the support of its estranged factions for its planned protests and probable boycott of elections if its demands were not accepted. However, all three mainstream political parties opposed the postponement of elections on these flimsy grounds. They were confident that the MQM had not only planned to boycott the elections but would also try to disrupt the electoral process by creating law-and-order problems on polling day. Therefore, the ECP should deploy rangers at polling stations.
The MQM was not in a position to compete with Jamaat-e-Islami in these local government elections in the city. Hafiz Naeem, over a year or so, had been running his election campaign systematically, drawing substantial crowds. The city’s past mayors from the Jamaat, Abdul Sattar Afghani and Advocate Niamatullah Qureshi, enjoyed credibility for public service, honesty, and commitment to the Metropolis, dwarfing, quite palpably, their successors from MQM, such as Farooq Sattar, Syed Mustafa Kamal, and Wasim Akhtar.
The fear of electoral humiliation loomed over the heads of MQM leaders, who were just looking for excuses to derail the second phase of local government elections. The PPP itself would have been averse to holding these local elections had it not improved its electoral chances in Pashtun or non-Urdu speaking areas through sustained development works and the pliable administration already put in place.
Nevertheless, the Sindh High Court's decision constituted the main hurdle to postponing the elections. The PTI’s poor organisational structure and indiscipline proved its Achilles’ heel.
All the political conditions, limitations of the contesting political parties, and administrative push paved the way for the emergence of Barrister Abdul Wahab of the PPP as the Mayor of the city. Barrister Wahab is the prodigal son of the late Ms Fauzia Wahab, the former senator and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party from Karachi. He enjoys the confidence of the ruling PPP leadership and could perform wonders for the city. He also seems to be in the good books of the corps command.
Karachi is a vibrant city, already under new leadership. The powers that be must not weaken local governance by artificially supporting political groups already slipping into decline.
The city’s mandate has been abused by mysterious powers since 1984. The city needs peace, improved law and order, efficient municipal services, and a business- and investment-friendly environment. We should let the people of the city decide which political party should run their local governments.