KARACHI: While the Muttahida Qaumi Movement is set to grab the top slots in four of the six district municipal corporations in Karachi, a tough contest is expected in South and Malir districts where the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz can play the kingmaker’s role.

The surprise emergence of the PML-N in the city’s local government elections forced not only the MQM but also the Pakistan Peoples Party to seek support of the ruling party at the Centre.

The MQM, which said it won 136 union committees in Karachi, can easily get its mayor and deputy mayor elected without entering into an alliance with any party.

Likewise, it has a comfortable majority in Central, Korangi, East and West districts to bring its chairman in each DMC.

According to MQM spokesman Amin-ul-Haq, the party won 11 of 31 UCs in South district and it needed only five more votes for a simple majority.

Karachi PPP president Najmi Alam told Dawn that his party won nine UCs in South district and was short of seven votes to get his party candidate elected to the slot of the DMC chairman.

It appears that both parties badly needed the PML-N in South district, as the latter claimed to have won five UCs in South district.

On Tuesday, senior MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar talked to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and sought the PML-N’s support in the upcoming election of the chairman of DMC-South.

Senator Saeed Ghani of the PPP told Dawn that his party was also in contact not only with the PML-N but also with the Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and independent candidates who won the election in South district.

He, however, said that no contact was made with the MQM or vice versa.

Senior PML-N leader Senator Nehal Hashmi while claiming that his party was in contact with the MQM, PPP and others said it was premature to say anything until the Election Commission of Pakistan declared official results.

“We are in talks with everyone ... we won five UCs in South district and right now we are the single-largest party in Malir district with four UCs [out of 10 seats as unofficial results of the three other UCs have not been announced],” he said.

He said he had spoken to Sindh Chief Syed Qaim Ali Shah and also received calls from MQM leaders Babar Ghori and Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan.

“We are weighing our options ... we do what is appropriate for our workers and constituents who voted for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s approach for providing peace to Karachi,” he said. “But I must say everyone underestimated us during the election campaign but the results proved that we are a big power in Karachi and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Jamaat-i-Islami are far behind us.”

Of the 13 Malir UCs, a party will need at least seven votes to get its chairman elected.

The MQM won only one UC in Malir district, while PPP’s Najmi Alam claimed that his party got success in four UCs.

“We will see what the MQM offers to us in Karachi and what the PPP offers in Karachi and Sindh,” said Senator Hashmi about his future strategy.

According to the MQM, it won 50 UCs in Central, 34 in Korangi, 22 in West, 18 in East, 11 in South and one in Malir districts.

The PML-N said it won eight UCs in West, five each in Malir and South and one each in Korangi and East districts.

Mr Alam of the PPP claimed that his party got nine seats in South, four each in West, East and Malir and one in Central districts.

SLGA-2013 termed black law

The MQM said on Tuesday that it would adopt all legal and constitutional means to empower Karachi mayor and other elected local government representatives and sought support from all political stakeholders in the metropolis.

Speaking at a press conference, MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi said that the LG system of 2013 was imposed in the province by the PPP and PTI lawmakers who passed the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013 in the Sindh Assembly.

“This black law gives maximum powers to the bureaucracy as the provincial government wants to control the local bodies by occupying the basic functions like sewerage, master plan, building control, solid waste management, etc,” he said.

MQM leader Waseem Akhtar appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the law in order to empower the elected LG representatives under Article 140-A of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2015