ntil July 17, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was running a dull campaign for the upcoming local government elections in Karachi. There was gloom among the PTI ranks as a majority of party leaders in the metropolis felt ‘demoralised’ after the ousting of premier Imran Khan in a no-confidence move in April.

However, the results of the crucial by-elections for 20 seats in the Punjab held on July 17 have encouraged the party’s Karachi leaders and workers to intensify their campaign not only for the local government elections but also for an upcoming by-election in Karachi’s NA-245 (where the seat fell vacant after the death of PTI MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain). On July 17, the PTI clinched 15 provincial assembly seats out of the 20 up for grabs and dealt a stunning blow to the coalition alliance led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on its home turf in the Punjab province.

The PTI Sindh leaders say that the victory in the by-elections in the Punjab has boosted the morale of the party leaders and supporters in Karachi. “After the victory in the by-elections in the Punjab, there is a feeling that the PTI can also win the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad divisions,” says Ali Zaidi, the PTI Sindh chief, and a former federal minister.

However, the by-polls in Karachi and Hyderabad scheduled to take place on July 24 (today), have been postponed due to rain forecast by the Met Office. The polling will now be held on August 28, according to a spokesperson of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) who announced the decision on June 20.

PTI Sindh spokesperson and MPA Arsalan Taj says that the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan had wanted to postpone the local government elections to avoid a humiliating defeat.

The PTI’s central leadership has now shifted its focus to Karachi and Hyderabad – another important front – and the NA-245 by-election. Plans have been laid for the party supremo Imran Khan to address public gatherings in the two major urban centres of the province. However, because of the upcoming election of the chief ministership in the Punjab, Khan has instead sent former federal ministers – Asad Umar, Murad Saeed, Ali Muhammad Khan and Sheharyar Afridi – to speak at the rallies in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Most political analysts believe that the political situation in Karachi, a multi-ethnic city, is different from the Punjab and the rest of the country. The outcome of these elections is also harder to predict considering recent moves by various political parties.

In the upcoming local government elections, nearly 8.5 million voters will exercise their right to vote in seven districts of the city, namely, East, Central, West, Keamari, South, Korangi and Malir.

Political analysts say that the results will likely be mixed. They say securing a simple majority in the City Council will be an uphill task for every party, including the MQM-P which had won a clear majority in the 2015 local government elections.

“In Karachi, there are several cities within the city; every district and town has its unique political diversity. The central district alone has more than two million voters,” says Munir Ahmed Shah, a journalist who has covered the city’s electoral politics extensively.

In the 2018 general election, the PTI had emerged as the largest political party in Karachi, winning 14 out of 21 National Assembly seats. The Imran Khan-led party had also done well in Azizabad, Korangi and Gulshan-i-Iqbal, previously considered the MQM-P fortresses. The PTI candidate had also defeated PPP supremo Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the party’s traditional stronghold of Lyari.

Shah says that the PTI’s victory in the Punjab has helped the PTI in the city’s middle-class and upper-middle class neighbourhoods: Clifton, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, North Nazimabad and the PECHS. “But the postponement of the local government polls for over a month will affect the tempo of the PTI’s campaign,” Shah tells The News on Sunday.

Analysts also say that the PTI is, in fact, taking over the Jamaat-i-Islami’s vote bank in the city’s middle-class neighbourhoods. The Jamaat has been running a ‘Karachi rights campaign’ for the local government polls.

For the MQM-P, which won most of the general and local government elections, except the 2018 general elections, problems still exist. In the recently held by-polls in NA-240 in Karachi’s Korangi district, an MQM-P stronghold, the party retained the seat by a razor-thin majority – with a mere 65 votes – against the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan, a religious party that turned out to be a spoiler for the MQM-P and the PPP in the 2018 general elections and which helped the PTI win most of the seats from the city.

Experts say that the NA-240 results showed a dominating presence of the TLP in Karachi’s low-income and middle-class Urdu-speaking neighbourhoods that were formerly considered a stronghold of the MQM-P. On July 20, the TLP chief, Saad Rizvi, arrived in Karachi to lead the party’s electoral rallies for three days from District Central, where in 2015 local government polls, the MQM-P had won 50 out of the 51 union committees.

The TLP factor had forced some factions of the MQM-P to field joint candidates in the local government polls and NA-245 by-polls. All those efforts failed.

Taking advantage of being a ruling party in the province and division of the Muhajir vote bank, the PPP is trying to snatch Karachi’s mayorship from the MQM-P. The PPP has made electoral alliances and seat adjustments with various political parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Awami National Party, and the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam-Fazl, at the local level. It is planning to forge a broader alliance with more parties by splitting towns among them in order to gain mayor vote.

However, except for Sindhi and Baloch populated neighbourhoods, the situation is uncertain for the PPP as well. A PPP leader says that the party’s central leadership has felt the impact of the results of the Punjab by-polls and has asked its Karachi leaders to urge the party’s disgruntled workers who are contesting local government polls against the party candidates to withdraw in their favour.

In the city’s Pashtun populated areas, the votes are expected to be distributed among several political parties, including the PTI, the PML-N, the PPP, the JI, the JUI-F, the ANP and the Pakistan Rah-i-Haq Party, an electoral front of the proscribed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat.

The writer is a staff member. He can be reached at zeea.rehman@gmail.com. He tweets at @zalmayz