The second round of Sindh’s local elections finally took place on Sunday after considerable commotion, despite the province government’s best efforts to keep this essential democratic process from happening at all.
Elections to choose representatives for the third tier were held primarily in urban Sindh, including Karachi, Hyderabad, and a few other districts, as a result of the ECP’s tenacity.
The largest metropolis in Pakistan had gone almost two and a half years without elected municipal representation before to the election on Sunday. Despite a low participation that was caused by a number of factors, the voting process was relatively peaceful.
Surprisingly, the PPP has become the dominant force in Karachi and Hyderabad. The MQM-P, which has historically dominated electoral politics in urban Sindh, sat this one out due to what it perceived as unfair delimitations and “false” voters’ lists. Jamaat-i-Islami, which mounted a strong campaign and advocated for the elections, has the second-highest number of seats in Karachi.
The JI and PTI have questioned the election’s transparency, particularly in light of Karachi’s results’ delayed compilation. Both parties claim that state apparatus was used to rig the polls. Unless these claims are adequately addressed, as we have seen on the national stage, controversy will taint the LG polls and cast doubt on the process’s openness. Therefore, the PPP-led administration and ECP must appease opponents of the transparency of the LG polls while the opposition parties, if they have credible evidence of unlawful practises being used to influence the results, must present it.
It is obvious that the task facing Karachi’s incoming mayor will be enormous, regardless of who wins the election.
Ensuring that the elections took place was a significant accomplishment in and of itself; persuading everyone of their fairness will be even more difficult; and the most difficult task of all will be getting to work and rebuilding this metropolis, indeed the rest of Sindh, into a livable 21st-century urban space.
To achieve this, the 2013 Sindh local government law has to be modified, especially to give the mayor of Karachi and other civic organisations in the province the resources they need to run an efficient government.
The LG elections will mostly be a show of force if the Karachi mayor continues to be a symbolic figurehead and if all municipal authority is still vested in the provincial government.
An elected mayor is required to handle a variety of duties, including solid waste management, water and sewer management, planning, and building regulation. Karachi is in ruins, and unless the provincial government gives the new mayor the resources and authority she needs, the megacity’s misery will only get worse.
