Karachi has the most voters and the biggest number of assembly seats among Pakistani cities.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan data, 8,470,568 Karachiites are eligible to cast votes on February 8. Millennials, aged between 28 and 43, make the largest pool, being roughly 40 percent of the voters. They are followed by Gen X, Gen Z and Baby Boomers in the descending order.

This scribe spoke to voters in each of these demographic cohorts, living in various areas of the city to understand their needs, feelings and hopes regarding the upcoming election.

Karachi has seen its fair share of political, ethnic, sectarian and criminal violence in the past. Fortunately, the reign of terror has been broken. However, recent armed clashes between political parties in the city are worrisome.

Muhammad Yawar, 30, an account manager at a multinational software company, lives in the Nazimabad area, where, on January 28, an activist of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan was killed and a Pakistan Peoples Party worker was injured in exchange of fire between the supporters of these parties.

“It seems that the militant wings of the political parties are reviving,” says Yawar. “I have seen people getting killed in the city and the police and Rangers doing nothing about it,” he says.

For him, he says, the biggest concern is security. “Earlier, people used to worry that someone would kill them because they supported a different political party, or spoke a different language, or belonged to a different sect or religion. Now, they worry about getting hurt or killed in street crime.” Yawar hopes that the governments formed after the elections will work on eliminating violent crime from the city. “This is the least I ask of them,” he adds.

Forty-seven-year-old Nosheen Raza is a housewife. She lives in the Landhi area of the city. She is a mother of two girls and a boy. Her biggest concern is the daily electricity and gas loadshedding.

“Despite the long load shedding hours, the electricity bills are so high that we have to worry whether we should spend our money on food or pay these bills,” she says. She adds that the inflation has reached an all-time high. On the other hand, her household income has stagnated. She wants the next government to curb inflation so that the working class can have a decent life.

This will be the second time 26-year-old Muhammad Naqi will cast his vote in a general election. Having graduated from the University of Karachi in human resource discipline, Naqi is looking for opportunities to study abroad. “There is nothing for the youth in this country,” he says.

“The country has a large young population. The youth want to make a living for themselves but there are no opportunities. This makes them think about moving abroad,” he says. He says he has applied for several jobs but has not been successful. He sees job quotas in urban Sindh as an unfair impediment.

The writer is a journalist and is pursuing his masters in digital narratives in Germany