The city by the sea has witnessed seven by-elections on as many National Assembly seats during the past four years, contested by every major political party — Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), etc.

In all of these electoral exercises, however, voter apathy has remained a constant thread throughout, and Sunday’s by-election was no different.

The election for NA-237 (Malir) saw PPP’s Hakim Baloch getting 32,567 votes to defeat Imran Khan, who bagged 22,493 votes amid a turnout of 20.33pc. This was the only by-election in Karachi which was not contested by the MQM-P.

In the NA-239 (Korangi) by-election held on the same day, Mr Khan comfortably secured 50,014 votes to defeat MQM-P’s Nayyar Raza, who only managed 18,116 votes amid a dismally low turnout of 14.88pc. This, according to Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) was the lowest turnout of any of Sunday’s by-elections.

So why do the people of Karachi — one of the largest cities in the world and a politically vibrant metropolis — stay away from polling stations, and who stands to benefit (or not, as the case may be) from such low turnouts?

Initially, it was claimed that the reason behind low turnouts in every by-election was that the Election Commission of Pakistan would schedule polling on a weekday instead of the weekly holiday, i.e. Sunday. As a result, ECP scheduled the last three by-elections — NA-245, NA-237 and NA-239 — on a Sunday, but this has also failed to improve the turnout in any significant way.

Then there are those — mostly opponents of the MQM — who cite a lack of public interest in elections, saying that citizens are fed up with nearly every political party because of inflation, unemployment and the worsening crime situation in the city.

One of these voices is Nadeem Nusrat. The former MQM convener and Voice of Karachi chairman argues that since issues that matter to the people are not on the table, “the low turnout shows the ever-growing voter apathy in the current political and electoral system”.

He insists voters are sick of ‘false promises’ made by every party, including MQM, PTI and PPP. “The establishment has been busy politically engineering Karachi’s politics, but it has failed to give the city what it needs. Do you want to see an unprecedented voter turnout in Karachi and Hyderabad? Hold a referendum on urban Sindh’s administrative autonomy [and] the voters’ enthusiasm will surpass all expectations,” he claimed.

Boycott factor?

But if you speak to traditional MQM pundits, the low voter turnout seems to indicate a growing sense of alienation stemming from the party’s split into multiple factions, repeated boycott calls by founder Altaf Hussain, as well as the establishment’s growing influence on all groups, which has led to a ‘political vacuum’ in the city.

Reacting to the outcome of Sunday’s by-polls, senior MQM-London leader Dr Nadeem Ehsan tweeted: “The successful boycott of by-election in Karachi has exposed the fact that the urban Sindh is with Altaf Hussain. Pakistan ruling forces must admit that they cannot impose artificial leadership on Karachiites.”

This view seems to be backed by numbers. Despite participating in each successive by-poll, the party’s various factions — MQM-P, Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-Haqiqi) — have failed to get significant number of votes. In the latest by-polls, PSP got 272 votes in NA-237 and 1,208 in NA-239 while MQM-H contested only NA-239 election and got 1,590 votes.

This is a far cry from the MQM of yore, which could pull out a victory even in the most heavily-policed of elections. Recall that until 2013, the unified party was notorious for allegedly manipulating the polls and faced widespread allegations of rigging in every election.

But in April 2015, a by-election was held on an NA seat in Azizabad, completely under the watchful eye of Rangers personnel who were deployed inside polling booths to minimise any chances of rigging.

Despite this, the MQM comfortably won the election as its candidate Kanwar Naveed Jameel got 95,644 votes, followed by PTI’s Imran Ismail and Jamaat-i-Islami’s Rashid Naseem who bagged 24,821 and 9,056 votes, respectively. The turnout there was 36.7 per cent. The same year, the MQM then led by Altaf Hussain, won the local government elections in Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas.

But, the situation changed in 2016, when former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal returned to the country and formed his own PSP, along with a good number of former MQM figures.

Then came Aug 22, 2016, when Mr Hussain delivered an incendiary speech from his London abode, which forced the establishment to put an undeclared ban on him.

His party was allowed limited political freedom, but only after it publicly disowned him. As a result, the party split into MQM-P and MQM-London also referred to as (MQM-Altaf). Two years later, the MQM-P further split into MQM-Bahadurabad and MQM-PIB after Dr Farooq Sattar parted ways with the former.

Initially, it seemed as if Karachi’s voters were not ready to accept this as a permanent arrangement and expected the split to be temporary. Many believed MQM-P and MQM-London to be two sides of the same coin and this confusion persisted until the 2018 general elections, when London faction announced a boycott, while MQM-P contested under its old symbol, the kite.

The absence of Altaf also seemed to weigh heavily on MQM-P, as it lost 17 NA seats and won only four in Karachi, a far cry from its hey-day. Since then, MQM-London has been asking its supporters and sympathisers to stay home and boycott every by-election.

Dawn approached both MQM-P and PSP for their perspective, but both parties chose not to respond to the paper’s queries.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2022