KARACHI: Imprisoned Waseem Akhtar of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement was on Tuesday sworn in as the new mayor of Karachi — about nine months after holding of the local government elections.

Besides Karachi’s district municipal corporations, more than 200 heads of as many large municipal bodies in Sindh also took the oath of their office on Tuesday, thus, formally completing a prolonged process of the LG elections that began there even before elections in Karachi.

Mr Akhtar, who won the mayoral election with an overwhelming majority last week, took the oath of the city’s highest office in a ceremony held at Gulshan-i-Jinnah (Polo Ground) amid loud celebratory slogans by his party workers as well as rival Pakistan Peoples Party cadres.

MQM’s Waseem Akhtar is first person in the country to win mayoral election from jail

Mr Akhtar is the first person in the country’s history to have won the mayoral election from prison. He has been in prison since July 19 after an antiterrorism court dismissed his pre-arrest interim bail application in a case pertaining to treatment of suspected terrorists.

Karachi’s Deputy Mayor Arshad Vohra also took the oath of his office. Returning Officer Samiuddin Siddiqui administered the oath to the pair.

The tenure of the city’s last elected mayor, then called nazim, Syed Mustafa Kamal, ended almost six and a half years ago in February 2010.

Mr Akhtar was brought in for the swearing-in ceremony from the Karachi central prison in an armoured personnel carrier.

Members of Karachi mayor’s family, senior leadership of the MQM, including its head Dr Farooq Sattar, were present at the Polo Ground to attend the ceremony.

“I will request the Sindh chief minister to either give me an office at the central jail or pass a law so that I can solve people’s issues,” he said while speaking to the gathering after taking the oath.

He called upon diplomats and business community to support him in this endeavour. “I need your help to fix the issues [faced by Karachi],” he said.

As his party had announced that it had no ties with its self-exiled founder Altaf Hussain, Mr Akhtar gave no mention of him in his speech and subsequent media talk.

It seemed that he kept his former aggressive self in check and kept a reconciliatory tone as he thanked everyone including the people of Karachi, workers belonging to the MQM, PPP, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamaat-i-Islami and all those who participated in the election.

“I thank you all for electing me and putting confidence in me. I thank the Supreme Court as well which ordered [holding of] the local government elections and the process at last completed after several months,” he said.

Speaking about the delay in the mayoral election, he said: “It took nine months after election here for a mayor to be sworn in while the mayor in London assumed his office just four hours after he was declared elected.”

“On a lighter side,” he quipped, “it is almost as if this was a Caesarean child. It was not a normal delivery. Let’s hope for the best.”

He termed CM Syed Murad Ali Shah a ‘young and energetic’ leader who knew well about the problems of Karachi and rest of Sindh and would give everything required for the progress of the city and the province.

He said Karachi was facing many issues; his party had resolved such issues in the past and would tackle them with heightened zeal this time round.

“Sindh is the province which has suffered the most. Sindh, especially Karachi, generate revenue that runs the country.”

He said he would apply for bail as the charges he was facing were bailable.

When he said “we’ll work hard and let no one to inflict harm to this country; we’ll not allow anyone to cast an evil eye on it”, many in the gathering thought it contained certain message for some quarters.

Later, he told journalists that he would support MQM-Pakistan under the leadership of Dr Sattar.

Mr Akhtar was not allowed to visit and pay his respect to the Quaid’s mausoleum after taking the oath. He said his oath would remain incomplete until he visited the mausoleum.

Authorities said they were not permitted to allow Mayor Akhtar to go anywhere from Polo Ground. “It requires another order from the authorities,” said an official.

Heads of Karachi’s five of six DMCs take oath

The chairmen and vice chairmen of city’s five of the six DMCs – South, East, Central, Malir and Korangi – as well as its Karachi District Council took oath of their offices in separate ceremonies.

The chairmen and vice chairmen of DMCs-Central, Korangi and East belonging to the MQM, while the top offices of the remaining two DMCs occupied by the candidates of the PPP.

The notification regarding the successful candidates of DMC-West was not issued on Tuesday as the results got disputed because of change of initial results by the returning officer for technical reasons.

Initially, MQM’s Izharuddin Ahmed was declared winner on the seat of chairman of DMC-West. Later, the returning officer withheld the result because of ‘illegal’ marks on 24 ballot papers which were stamped in favour of MQM’s candidate.

The results were changed the other day by cancelling the 24 ballot papers and PML-N’s Asif Khan was declared winner. The MQM, later, disputed it at the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Result of 10 of the 218 largemunicipalities withheld

Provincial Election Commissioner Tanvir Zaki toldDawn that there were 218 big municipalities in Sindh. But, the results of 10 of them, were withheld on legal grounds or disputes being sorted out by the ECP.

The 10 municipalities are: DMC-West in Karachi, municipal committees of Thatta, Gambat, and Sinjhoro; district council of Thatta; and town committees of Jamshoro, Tando Mitha Khan, Jhol, Khadro and Shadi Pali.

Also on Tuesday, MQM’s Tayyab Hussain, PPP’s Arsalan Shaikh and Aslam Shaikh were sworn in as mayors of Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana.

In Sindh, there are 148 town committees, 36 municipal committees, three municipal corporations, six district municipal corporations, 24 district councils and one metropolitan corporation (in Karachi).

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2016