February 11, 2008	Monday	Safar 03, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 10: After a period of mourning, the grieving Pakistan People’s Party appears determined to avenge its leader’s assassination by offering stiff resistance to the ruling dispensation in the city where the populace stood up to Ayub Khan and was at the forefront of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah’s democratic campaign. It was at Lalu Khet (now Liaquatabad), after all, that the 1968 battles against dictatorship were fought and won.

Since then, however, much water has flowed under the bridge and the city’s demographic and political cultures have undergone radical changes. Today there are issues of ethnicity, mutual distrust, fear and a sense of alienation caused by the erosion of the will of the state apparatus and the political party system to respond to current challenges. After the rise of people’s power in the 1970 elections, the PPP took the city for granted and its commissars lost sight of the “roti, kapra aur makan” mooring. This was primarily because they had to rally support for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s national and international agenda after the country was truncated.

While the PPP boycotted the party-less elections of 1985, the people of Karachi made sure that the candidates of parties allied with General Ziaul Haq were defeated. However, they could not block the ethnic sway which, despite being sponsored by the establishment, was perceived by the common people as a protest against the deprivation of the people of Karachi at the hands of a military dictator. Issues of ethnicity arose because army rule was perceived as the rule of the province.

After the 2002 elections, however, new battle-lines were drawn between pro-democracy and pro-general parties. The May 12 carnage, the Nov 3 imposition of emergency rule, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the drastically altered game-plan for the Feb 18 elections, which many activists call “sham elections,” have contributed to the face-off.

This time, the PPP cadre appears to be making the attempt to re-enter the city’s mainstream, as was indicated by its performance in the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) Council and those of some other towns. The big question, however, is how the PPP can articulate grief over Ms Bhutto’s assassination into a reinvigoration of the party cadre and stage a comeback at the local, provincial and national levels from Karachi by shedding the myth that it abandoned the city and was supported mainly by rural Sindh.

The PPP leadership knows that the party cannot win a sizeable number of seats from the metropolis but hopes to pose a serious challenge in some constituencies to the ruling coalition partners, who are taking the credit for various development projects in the city. While the PPP, which has been in the opposition, does not need to defend much in terms of its track record of public service, bread and butter issues have unfortunately been overshadowed. This suits the parties aligned to the Musharraf-led dispensation, which have been taking undue credit for projects that were federally-funded.

While wary of engaging in a confrontation with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) given the ‘soft’ approach indicated by the slain leader of the PPP, the party leadership remains critical of the partisan roles played by the governor and the city government in favour of the MQM.

Gearing up

In the upcoming elections, there is a contest over 20 National Assembly (NA) seats and 42 provincial assembly (PA) seats in Karachi. In the 2002 elections, the PPP won only two NA seats and five PA seats: Sardar Nabeel Gabol won NA-248 (Lyari) while Sher Mohammed Baloch won NA-258 (Malir); successful provincial candidates were Akhtar Jadoon (PS-89), Salim Hingoro (PS-108), Rafiq Engineer (PS-109), Abdullah Murad (PS-127) and Sajid Jokhio (PS-130).

This time around, the PPP has put up candidates to contest all the NA and PA seats in the city, although it withdrew a candidate from one of the provincial assembly seats as part of a seat adjustment with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N): Zulfikar Qaimkhani was withdrawn in favour of Salim Zia of the PML-N.

In the last elections, the PPP also won NA-239 in the re-counting of the ballots but Iftikhar Hussain of Afghan Carpets was not administered oath and the seat was retained by the MMA candidate.

This time, the PPP has put up a strong candidate, Qadir Patel, instead of Mr Iftikhar, who decided to go it on his own and attempted to seek support from some estranged PPP activists under the banner of the workers’ group. However, after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, they too distanced themselves from Mr Iftikhar, whose elder brother is reportedly close to President Musharraf.

NA-239 (Tapo Gabopat of Old Karachi West, Ittehad town, Yousuf Goth, PAF Base Masroor, Sultanabad, Manora Cantonment etc) is a vast constituency comprising people of Bengali origin, Pakhtuns, Baloch and Sindhis. The PPP is making an effort to convince the MMA to ask its voters to vote for the PPP in order to defeat those who were part of the Musharraf-led dispensation. The PPP, meanwhile, is convincing the people that their non-participation in the polls translates to strengthening the same dispensation.

However, the PPP may face problems on the seat because of the presence of Mr Iftikhar is being viewed as a spoiler. Sources within the party say that Asif Zardari advised him to accept the party’s decision on the nomination but was ignored. Mr Iftikhar, therefore, is still in the field – much to the annoyance of PPP workers who are in no mood to accept deviations from the party discipline after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Mr Patel, who, besides getting pro-PPP votes, may also grab votes from neutral voters of the Katchi community. Both the PPP and JUI-F have equal chance of winning the seat. This time, former local bodies minister K.S. Mujahid, who contested on the ticket of the PML-Q in the previous elections from NA-240, is the MQM’s candidate.

Tough contests expected

A good contest can be expected in NA-249 (Allama Iqbal Colony, Dhobi Ghat, Garden West, Ranchore Lane, Lea Market, Kharadar, etc). Here, Habib Memon of the PPP is due to face Dr Farooq Sattar, Deputy Convener of the MQM. The PPP hopes to win the support of most of the residents of Lyari, Kharadar, Usmanabad and Ranchore Lane where the Katchi Memon Salawat biradari is very influential.

NA-249 can, therefore, be seen as the key seat in Karachi. This time, the MMA is not contesting, the JUP has withdrawn its candidate and the Sunni Tehrik is supporting the PPP. If one counts the ratio of votes given the so-called disenchantment factor against the MQM and the sympathy swing in favour of the PPP, the balance appears tilted towards the opposition party. Why the MQM chose to field Dr Sattar from the constituency, therefore, remains questionable.

Yet another interesting contest will take place in NA-250, where the residents are a mixture of the downtrodden and those born with silver spoons in their mouths. The PPP’s candidate, industrialist Mirza Ikhtiar Beg, is once again facing the MQM’s Khushbakht Shujaat and another former minister, Haleem Siddiqui. On Feb 18, the party that manages to bring more voters to the polling booth is likely to do better. However, the element of fear injected in the citizenry by the establishment may prove the crucial factor in this regard.

Still another constituency to watch is NA-240, where PPP old-timer Abdullah Baloch is contesting against MQM and JUI candidates.

In NA-253 (Gulshan-i-Iqbal), the PPP has a good presence as far as banners and billboards are concerned. However, the party’s Faisal Raza Abidi is pitted against MQM central leader and former MNA, Haider Abbas Rizvi. The PPP will have to work hard to put up a fight of any significance. Meanwhile, Hakim Baloch is challenging the MQM’s Faisal Sabzwari on the provincial seat.

The general-secretary of the PPP’s local chapter, Rafiq Engineer, believes that his party will have no trouble retaining NA-248 (Lyari), where Nabeel Gabol is standing again. He told Dawn that the area, which is one of the oldest localities in the city, is a glaring example of neglect by a ruling coalition that has been at the helm for a long time, one way or the other. Criticizing the Sindh governor and CDGK for newspaper supplements claiming credit for development work that had been undertaken mainly from the federal government’s fund, he said that such methods were being employed to boost the MQM’s election campaign.

“As the president’s agent, the governor ought not to have indulged in party politics,” he pointed out. “Similarly, the role played by the CDGK proves the opposition’s claim that the local government institution was being misused to the detriment of the opposition.”

Mr Engineer said that the inauguration of the south-bound Lyari Expressway by President Musharraf was being seen as an attempt to lend support to the MQM, adding that the haste in which such projects are being inaugurated, despite their poor workmanship, showed how these institutions were being misused. The PPP leadership maintains that it will make every effort possible to foil other political parties’ attempts to capture or control polling booths.

The APDM question

The path, however, is difficult. The PPP is conscious of the fact that the postponement of the elections or a low turnout goes in favour of the ruling coalition: postponement means the continuation of their rule while a low turnout means that people aligned with the ruling coalition can occupy some polling stations and resort to heavy stuffing of the ballot boxes to achieve the desired overall results. According to Mr Engineer, the PPP leadership is devising strategies to foil such attempts.

“We have seen in earlier elections that most voters come out to vote despite any boycotts announced by political parties,” he observed. “In the current situation, the question before the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) is whether they will clear the field for the allies of the dictator or whether, as PPP voters did in 1985, they will come out on polling day to defeat the dictatorship.”