KARACHI, 15 July — Pakistan’s leading politicians have converged in Karachi from their respective headquarters in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad to focus on the election of chief mayor for the country’s biggest city, and its economic capital, and have launched themselves into hectic negotiations to capture the prestige post. The most significant arrival was of Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, the chief of the multiparty alliance called the ARD. He violated the ban imposed on his entry into Sindh province by landing at the Karachi airport and forcing his entry into the city, despite orders to the contrary from the local administration.
“This is my city, I am in my country. You cannot prevent me from being in a city which is part of my country.” He adopted, for the first time in at least 15 years, a tough posture toward an administration which he says has been behaving like colonial masters. Security staff tried to block his way into the city but efforts made by them at the airport, failed to convince Nawabzada. The aging politician pushed himself into a car waiting outside the terminal building, and drove off for residence in the heart of the town of his party’s president for Karachi.
Soon afterward, two more leaders — former Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and the senior vice chairman of the Muslim League, Ejazul Haq, also air dashed to Karachi to meet their party workers in a bid to win a seat which they consider as important from prestige point of view. They held talks with the Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, Ghafoor Ahmad, and others and probably have promised the latter their support, in return, for less important posts in the new city setup which the military government has been planning for the port city, after the local bodies elections of July 2.
The Jamaat, feeling happy that it had been able to regain some lost ground in Karachi, after almost 15 years, has emerged as the clear winner with 66 seats out of a total 178, reserved for the metropolis. The Pakistan People’s Party trails behind with 52, and the breakaway faction of the Muslim League which is headed by former Nawaz minister Haleem Siddiqui in Karachi, has not done to well. Similarly, parties like JUP have faded into oblivion with the passage of time. A number of splinter groups have appeared with small number of seats to appear as power brokers.
But the PPP, sensing a major bargain, has withdrawn its candidature for the main posts, reiterating that in non-party elections, it would back its well-wishers. However, unofficially it had been looking for arrangement with the Jamaat or the post of naib nazim. This means that it has probably conceded the fight to the Jamaat nominee, Niamatullah, the local chief of the party in Karachi.
The Jamaat had held the post of mayor in Karachi in 1983, but the incumbent Sattar Afghani was removed from the office by then chief minister of the province Ghous Ali Shah, for leading an anti-government procession. He wanted the road tax, collected from motorists, to be returned to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, the agency that looks after the city affairs.
But that was the last time, the Jamaat was able to win elections in Karachi. The emergence of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement in 1986, saw a wholesale transformation in the pattern of politics in Karachi. The MQM held a complete sway on the voters, and twice had its mayors run the KMC.
