KARACHI, Nov 30: The Pakistan People’s Party leadership has announced to launch a campaign for the local bodies’ elections due next year, declaring that the next mayor of the metropolis would belong to the PPP.

Addressing a workers gathering at the PPP Secretariat on the 41st anniversary of the party’s foundation on Sunday, the party leadership admitted that the law and order situation in the city and security conditions at the borders were not ideal. However, the party would keep focussing Karachi for better results in the upcoming elections.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, who is also president of the Sindh’s PPP, said: “The country’s security that is under threat after the recent Mumbai attacks demands harmony and reconciliations among all political forces.” He asked party workers to show restraint and be patient amid deteriorating law and order situation and avoid levelling allegations against rival parties.

Mr Shah said: “We in Sindh and our senior leadership in the centre are carrying out efforts in the same line with an aim to bring the party under common agenda and that is the security of Pakistan.”

Leader of the house in the senate Raza Rabbani, earlier, alleged that the bureaucracy in the centre were hatching conspiracies against the elected government and making efforts to obstruct every measure that could benefit the people and strengthen the party’s roots in the masses.

“We need to defeat all such elements and such efforts demand more patience and sacrifice than the past. The companions of the dictator are still using every possible way to bring down the government through the bureaucracy,” he added.

PPP’s Karachi president Faisal Raza Abidi alleged that rioters conspired to sabotage the party’s function at Nishtar Park on its foundation day by creating the law and order situation in the city.

“But such tactics can’t inspire the PPP neither it can harass our workers. From today we will successfully run the election campaign with a confidence that the next city nazim will belong to the PPP,” he said.

He also announced that the party would organise a large public gathering at Nishtar Park within the next couple of weeks with all preparations and a full show of strength.