HYDERABAD:The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), for the first time since 1987, looks set to repeat history in Hyderabad Municipal Corporation by securing the slots of HMC’s mayor and deputy mayor.

It trounced Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (Noorani) backed ten-party alliance — Tameer-e-Ittehad Hyderabad — formed on a one-point agenda: to beat the MQM. Election on directly contested seats of HMC was held Thursday.

HMC has been restored as district government under the new local government system introduced by the PPP. Under the new delimitation, seats have been increased in the HMC.

A party spokesman says it has won 77 seats in Thursday’s polls as per results received in its zonal office’s election cell till the filing of this report. MQM, earlier, claimed to have already won 21 seats of chairmen/vice chairmen, unopposed, out of 96 seats.

“We will hopefully get our mayor and deputy mayor elected unopposed again," he said.

He said that in Mirpurkhas, the party’s 33 general councillors have won, out of 44 slots.

“We have wins to our credit in Hala, Naushero Feroze and Jamshoro as well”, said Aminul Haq, MQM coordination committee member.

The party had grabbed six out of 10 seats in Cantonment Board Hyderabad elections – held on April 25 – where for first time it also secured CBH’s vice-chairmanship.

MQM last won local government polls during Musharraf's regime in April 2005, when the city was headed by Kunwar Naveed Jamil as its district nazim.

Previously in 2001, PPP’s Dr Makhdoom Rafik Zaman was elected as district nazim.