PPP hoping to get mayoral slot with support of disgruntled PTI members

If things go by the book, two of the three largest parties after the local government elections in Karachi — Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — have to form an alliance to gain a majority in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation City Council to have their candidate elected as the mayor.

However, no meaningful talks have so far been held among the three forces for a possible coalition. In this scenario, the PPP’s demand for calling the City Council’s session for the mayoral election before the local government by-polls suggests that the party is hopeful for getting its mayor elected through some hidden strategy.

The News has learnt that the PPP has been targeting PTI members of the City Council to secure its victory in the mayoral election. To exploit the shaken organisational structure of the PTI, the PPP has made lucrative offers to chairmen and vice chairmen of the PTI in return for their support in the mayoral election.

“We are in close contact with around from 20 to 22 PTI chairmen and vice chairmen to work together for betterment of Karachi,” confirmed PPP Election Cell Incharge Syed Najmi Alam who is also a possible candidate of the party for the post of mayor or deputy mayor.

He maintained that the estranged group of PTI chairmen and vice chairmen believed that if they worked with the PPP, they could serve the people of their respective areas in an effective way.

Regarding the possible reaction of the PTI to the PPP’s strategy, he said the Karachi PTI leadership was at present in shock. “The PTI has no idea what it could do against the people who have formed close working relations with the PPP.”

Alam was of the view that the PTI chairmen and vice chairmen who have decided to support the PPP won the local bodies elections on the basis of their good reputation in their areas, not on the basis of the PTI tickets. The PPP leader added that such chairmen and vice chairmen did not want to go along with the PTI because it was no longer popular in Karachi.

When Alam was asked how the identities of such PTI members would be protected, he said, “The Sindh government has already written a letter to the Election Commission stating that the mayoral election should be conducted through secret balloting.”

Claiming that the PPP had won 86 union committees (UCs) from Karachi, he said he was very confident that the party would win six more UCs after recounting. He stated that the PPP already had the support of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz that had won eight UCs and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) that had secured two UCs.

Regarding the JI, Alam said the PPP leadership had contacted the JI to form a coalition for the local government but the JI leadership did not agree on taking anything less than a mayoral position. “This is why, both the parties couldn’t reach an agreement.”

Meanwhile, leaders of the PTI have denied that their elected local government representatives were in touch with the PPP. On March 20, Karachi PTI leaders Aftab Siddiqui and Khurram Sher Zaman had after a meeting the elected chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors at the Insaf House issued a statement, in which it was said that the PTI would not allow the Election Commission of Pakistan to steal its mandate.

“The PPP made unsuccessful attempts to buy the conscience of the people in the election at all levels but people know that the real representative party of Karachi is Tehreek-e-Insaf only. The PPP mayor in Karachi is like a madman's dream,” the statement read.

Also, the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, PTI’s Haleem Adil Sheikh, remarked in a statement issued last month that the PPP tried to buy the PTI’s people for gaining the position of Karachi mayor. “However, our people are reliable.”

Some political observers are of the view that the PPP will likely take advantage of serious differences within the ranks of the Karachi PTI leadership. “We recently observed that [newly-appointed] Karachi PTI President Aftab Siddiqui snatched mic from the hands of PTI senior leader and member of the provincial assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi on the stage in a public gathering that too in front of hundreds of party workers,” journalist Munir Ahmad Shah pointed out.

He said that a group of PTI chairmen and vice chairmen was ready to change their loyalty because they thought they had won the local government elections by their own efforts and the prominent Karachi leaders of the party were only focused on getting higher positions within the party.

The journalist remarked that after the local bodies elections, the PTI had convened only one meeting of its elected chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors. “This shows that the party is still ignoring its elected candidates.”