Even though, as usual, Punjab will once again become the most sought-after battleground in the upcoming general election, some of the most interesting contests are expected in Sindh’s chaotic capital, Karachi.

Chairpersons of the PPP and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) will be contesting a seat each from the city. On the other hand, top guns from the two main splinter groups of the now fractured Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) — once Karachi’s foremost electoral machine — will be battling it out to attract the bulk of the now-scattered Mohajir vote.

What’s more, some progressive human rights activists who, in the last few years, have gained much prominence through social and conventional media have also decided to register themselves as candidates from the city.

After the recent splintering of the MQM into three main factions, Karachi has opened up to all kinds of electoral possibilities. But the fact is, even during the height of MQM’s electoral supremacy (between 1988 and 2008) there were still quite a few constituencies within Karachi which no single party was able to completely dominate. This is mainly due to the ethnic make-up of the megalopolis. It remains the most diverse city in Pakistan with regard to ethnicity, religion, sects and sub-sects.

The MQM has a lot at stake in claiming electoral supremacy in its home turf

The city still has a Mohajir majority but this majority has been rapidly shrinking ever since the early 2000s. According to the 1951 and 1981 census reports, the Urdu-speaking Mohajir community constituted over 50 percent of the city’s population. But according to the 1998 census, this majority had slightly shrunk to 48 percent. Even though the full results of the 2017 census are yet to be announced, renowned sociologists, such as Arif Hasan, believe that the Mohajirs may now constitute no more than 41 percent of this city’s ever-growing population.

This fluctuation is important to understand because it was the Mohajir vote that had so effectively sustained MQM’s electoral prowess between 1988 and 2008. It was during the 2013 election that one noticed a slight shrinking of the party’s vote bank — something that might become visibly stark in the July polls.

Unlike the Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch and Pakhtuns, the Mohajir are not an organic ethnic group. In the 1980s, they were painstakingly organised by the MQM as a consolidated political and cultural entity on the basis that they had migrated from India during the Partition and most of them spoke Urdu.

Another development that the 2017 census is sure to highlight is how the city’s Pakhtun community is now set to become Karachi’s second-largest ethnic group, followed by Punjabi (including Saraiki), Sindhi and Baloch groups.

Before the 1988 election, Karachi’s Mohajir majority had overwhelmingly voted for religious parties such as the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP). Its Baloch and Sindhi communities had voted for the PPP and its Pakhtun community for the National Awami Party (NAP) or the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI).

It is interesting to note that from 1988 onwards, Mohajirs completely switched to voting for the MQM which staunchly opposed JI and JUP and remains to be an entirely secular outfit. Adil Khan, in his essay on the MQM for the 2004 issue of Asian Studies Review, explains that Mohajirs (before 1988) were “socially liberal” but “politically conservative.” Even when Karachi was voting for religious parties before 1988, the city’s demographics continued to espouse the country’s most pluralistic and liberal views.

The Mohajir vote for religious outfits had more to do with the fact that the Mohajirs, not being an ethnic entity, saw non-religious parties dominated by antagonistic ethnic groups.

MQM, after engineering the Mohajir majority of Karachi into becoming a rather synthetic ethnic whole, eroded the community’s conservative political compulsion and streamlined it with the group’s inherent social liberalism. This fusion was then maintained with a mixture of genuine populist appeal and periodical displays of strongarm tactics. It worked.

However, after dominating the city’s electoral landscape for almost 20 years, the party’s machine began to creak. By the time the 2013 election rolled around, on the one hand, the increasing unpredictability of its chief and the brewing factionalism within the party weakened it from within and, on the other hand, it bore the brunt of some vicious attacks by criminalised extremist outfits that had begun to set up shop in Karachi.

Eventually, the party finally split into three factions, MQM-Pakistan, MQM-Altaf and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP). The fact that recently the largest faction MQM-P has been exhibiting signs of further infighting has left the Mohajir voters feeling disoriented. Karachi’s Mohajir vote bank has opened up and that is why parties such as the PPP, PTI and even the new-born belligerent religious outfit, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) trying to storm in.

There is likelihood that MQM-P will be able to hold the fort in most MQM strongholds but will have to battle hard against the PSP and PTI. The PPP is likely to win from its strongholds of Lyari and maybe in the city’s suburban areas where Sindhis outnumber Mohajirs. The party may also gain some disgruntled MQM votes but, for this, it will have to battle PTI.

The main battles will be fought in areas with slight Mohajir majorities and significant Pakhtun, Sindhi and Punjabi communities. In 2013, most of the non-Mohajir voters in such areas of the city had voted for PTI. Nevertheless, during some by-elections in similar areas, the disgruntled MQM votes and non-Mohajir votes had largely gone to PPP.

At the moment, it is thus tough to predict which party will be able to eat into MQM’s eroding vote bank in areas where it always had to fight hard to win, and also just how much of a difference the PSP will make in MQM strongholds.

One must also not underestimate the vote bank the predominantly Punjab-centric party, the PML-N, has managed to maintain among the Hazara Punjabi and sections of the Pakhtun communities in Karachi. The party was largely successful in portraying itself to be the engine behind “the restoration of peace” in the city during and after the Rangers operation here. I won’t be surprised if it manages to bag a few seats from the city’s areas where the Punjabi and Pakhtun are in majority.

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 15th, 2018