LAHORE: The Jamaat-e-Islami has announced holding a demonstration outside the offices of the Election Commission Pakistan in Islamabad on Friday to protest its alleged connivance in rigging in the Karachi mayoral election.

JI emir Sirajul Haq told a press conference here on Sunday that the People’s Party, Sindh government and the Election Commission robbed the mandate of the people of Karachi in the mayoral polls held on Thursday.

PPP’s Murtaza Wahab grabbed the seat by securing 173 against 160 bagged by JI and PTI joint candidate Hafiz Naeemur Rehman. The covet office fell to the PPP for the first time in history though the party has ruled the Sindh province for over 30 years during the past five decades.

“The disappearance of 30 local representatives on the day of the mayoral election is a single event in the history of democracy. It was an act of kidnapping for ransom,” said Mr Haq, who was flanked by information secretary Qaiser Sharif, JI parliamentary leader in Sindh Assembly Syed Abdul Rasheed and Balochistan general secretary Hidayat Rahman Baloch.

The JI emir claimed that on the stubbornness of a prince (an allusion to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari), the wishes of more than 30 million people were crushed, and he who polled 173 votes against 193 of the rival was declared as successful.

Saluting the Karachiites for supporting the JI, he pledged to exhaust all constitutional and legal means to protect the rights of the port city. He said that the system and the rulers had failed to deliver as the PDM and PPP came to power on certain promises and declarations but not a single one was materialized.

“The country is suffering from an uncertain situation, delaying the election will be a deviation from the Constitution,” he said, demanding the government dissolve the assemblies and announce fresh elections.The JI emir said Balochistan was a story of deprivation and assured the people of the province that JI would stand with them, and that the Gwadar agreement would be implemented.

He said that the leader of “Gwadar Ko Haq Do Tehreek” Hidayat Rehman Baloch was put in jail only because he was asking for the rights of the people of the area.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2023