Karachi, with the largest population of any city in the country and the most seats in the National Assembly plays a vital role in politics of Pakistan. The city is also the industrial and economic hub of the country and houses the country’s biggest port. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent visits to Sindh are being seen as an effort to gain support in the province before the general elections next year.
With the census being conducted after a gap of nearly 18 years the city’s share in terms of national assembly and provincial assembly seats may grow even further. Since the 1999-coup till the very recently the Altaf Hussain lead Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had established a strong hold in the city. Extremist groups had long treasured a secure basis in Karachi, as had religious terror groups. That was a conventional crime industry specializing in kidnap, drug smuggling and extortion.
The change in Karachi’s fortune came after the 2013 general elections when the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) formed government in the center. Soon after an operation was started in Karachi lead by the Rangers and despite the continuous tug of war between the security establishment and the Sindh government over the jurisdiction and policing powers of the Rangers, the law and order situation in Karachi improved tremendously. The stats in this regard speak for themselves, in 2013 there were 2,789 killings in Karachi. In the first 11 months of 2016 there were 592. In 2013 there were 51 terrorist bomb blasts. Up to late November this year, there were two. Three years ago, Karachi suffered from an orgy of kidnapping for ransom. There were 78 cases in 2013, rising to 110 the following year. This year, there have been 19. Some 533 extortion cases were reported in 2013; in 2016, only 133. Sectarian killing is sharply down: while 38 members of the Shia minority (who are brutally targeted in Pakistan) were killed in 2013, that figure was down by two thirds in 2016.
Now, with elections approaching (general elections 2018), the city is seeing a rapidly changing political map, the PMLN has managed to install its own man at the governor house, Muhammad Zubair, the PPP holds the Sindh government, the Pak Sarzameen Party under the reformed Mustafa Kamal is also hopeful of taking a slice from Karachi’s many seats, the MQM-Pakistan under Farooq Sattar and the MQM-London are rather quiet at the moment but both still command sizeable influence in the city, as a matter of fact the Karachi Mayor belongs to the MQM-Pakistan too and there’s the small matter of Imran Khan lead Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf who still believes that they can have a role in Karachi’s politics. PMLN’s push in Sindh has come a bit too late, there was very little interest shown by the party leadership to make the province a priority. With just over a year to the general elections the party will mostly benefit by trying to bring together the anti-PPP element in the province under its wing and form alliances. On its own it will be too hard for the party to do any sizeable damage to the dominance of PPP.
PMLN’s push to gain support in Sindh seems a little too late.
High Court Judges’ Letter Case: The Chief Justice convened a full court meeting after meeting the Prime Minister
After meeting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the context of the letter written by the judges of Islamabad High Court,...
Read more