KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday asked the party’s Sindh leadership to improve their performance in the upcoming local government elections, particularly in the large cities of the province.

The general secretary of PPP-Sindh, Waqar Mehdi, vice president Rashid Rabbani, and ex-city president Najmi Alam called on Mr Bhutto-Zardari at Bilawal House where they discussed matters pertaining to reorganisation of the party with a particular emphasis on the PPP’s preparations for the LG elections, which are likely to be held this year.

Mr Mehdi said they presented the party’s efforts vis-à-vis participation in the coming LG elections to Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

Previously, the LG elections in Sindh were held in phases in 2015; however, Karachi could get its mayor in 2016 because of turbulent political events witnessed in the metropolis.

The PPP chairman meets provincial leadership at Bilawal House

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Wasim Akhtar was in prison when he was brought to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to take oath for the top job in the city.

Those LG elections were held around five years after the previous local councils had exhausted their tenures in 2010.

As the last elections were held more than four years ago, a petition has already been filed in the Sindh High Court seeking LG elections in the province.

Mr Mehdi said the local councils in Sindh had started functioning regularly in 2016; thus the current year is the year of LG elections in the province in which vote would be conducted for the cantonment boards and all LGs of Sindh in separate polls.

PPP leaders said the party chairman directed them to make it sure that everyone who had turned 18 should have his or her name in the voters’ lists.

Besides, the party was asked to do its reorganisation at grassroots. “Our mass contact campaign is already continuing,” said Mr Mehdi.

The Election Commission of Pakistan, which had gone dysfunctional because of incomplete composition, has notified for the delimitations for the cantonment boards’ elections across the country.

Similarly, delimitations would be held in accordance with the new census results in every province.

At present, the PPP has dominant sway over almost all local councils across Sindh except for its large cities like Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas where MQM-P traditionally rules to the roost.

The PPP is the distant second largest party in the KMC’s city council after the MQM-P.

Mr Mehdi said the party chairman had asked the Sindh leadership to focus even more on the regions where the PPP had potential to return with improved results.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2020