KARACHI: Major opposition political parties on Wednesday lashed out at the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for postponing the Aug 28 local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad for one more time.

They called it a conspiracy of the parties in the ruling coalition at the Centre to get away from the defeat and depriving people from their right to choose their true municipal representatives.

The Jamaat-i-Islami staged a protest sit-in on main Shahrah-i-Quaideen against the decision and announced that it would hold a protest demonstration outside the ECP offices on Aug 26 (tomorrow).

“It’s so shameful and unacceptable on the part of those involved in this conspiracy,” said JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman.

PPP keeps mum; MQM-P wants delimitation, census issues addressed before polls

He said that the ECP at the behest of the PPP government had further delayed the elections on the pretext of rains despite the fact that the Met office predicted no rains in Karachi on August 27 and 28. “This decision is tantamount to violating the democratic and constitutional rights of more than 30 million Karachiites,” he said.

PTI

Former federal minister and chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Sindh chapter Ali Zaidi said it was the fear of defeat that the PPP was making excuse by exploiting its power in Sindh.

He referred to the PTI victory in the recent by-poll in the NA-245 constituency as one of the reasons that convinced the “parties in the imported government coalition” to run away from the local government elections.

“But this strategy is not sustainable. All these fake parties which claim themselves as democratic parties would sooner or later face the wrath of the people in the shape of votes. They will all become history in Pakistan’s politics,” said Mr Zaidi.

PSP

Former Karachi mayor and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal expressed his surprise over the decision to postpone the local government polls.

He said that the reasons mentioned by the Sindh government and later endorsed by the ECP actually emerged only due to non-existence of the local government system in the province.

“There’s no solution of all these problems but an effective and true local government system,” he said, adding: “The local government is so crucial mainly for urban Sindh and one cannot postpone and put it on hold citing any challenge or crisis.”

He said the local government system was in fact solution to every challenge and a “delay in putting such a system in place will further complicate the situation and make the challenge much bigger”.

MQM-P concerned over delimitation

The Mutthida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P), which is a coalition partner with the ruling PPP at the Centre, sounded little concerned about the postponement of the local government elections in Karachi and Hyderabad.

The party was more concerned about the “unjustified delimitation, fake voter list and less count of population in the National Census 2017” and demanded that these problems be fixed before the fresh schedule of the local government polls.

“It’s the ECP decision to postpone the elections,” MQM-P leader Khawaja Izharul Hasan told a press conference at its temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad.

“We still request the ECP to review the delimitation issues in Karachi and Hyderabad. It’s only MQM-P which has been fighting for an empowered and effective local government system both in parliament and in courts,” he claimed.

The ruling PPP, however, stayed silent on the ECP decision.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2022