KARACHI: A survey shows Karachiites don’t see the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan — the former with the largest mandate from the city and the latter a runner up of the 2018 general elections — as their representative in the local government system for the metropolis and put their trust more in the Jamaat-i-Islami and then the Pak Sarzameen Party.

The fresh data comes through a survey in which hundreds of Karachiites were asked about the “most vocal political leaders” who could solve problems of their city and should be the next mayor of the metropolis.

“Hafiz Naeem of JI appears to be as the most considered vocal leader among Karachiites,” said Kashif Hafeez of Pulse Consultant while sharing details of the survey.

Pulse Consultant, which conducted the study in October, is a social research organisation with nationwide operations. The key questions that were asked during the survey were about overall problems of Karachi ranging from fast deteriorating urban infrastructure, growing street crimes, inflated electricity bills, loadshedding, etc, to the issues rising due to non-existence of an empowered local government system, Mr Hafeez said.

PSP’s Kamal comes second followed by PTI’s Naqvi, PPP’s Wahab and MQM-P’s Akhtar

“Former Karachi mayor and PSP chief Kamal is the second consideration, but there’s a huge gap between the first choice and second one in terms of numbers. In response to almost all the questions, more than half of the respondents took the name of Hafiz Naeem as their choice,” Mr Hafeez added.

The city’s largest elected representative in the 2018 elections, the PTI, seems to be far behind in this race and so is its past ally the MQM-P.

The Pakistan Peoples Party ruling Sindh for 15 consecutive years also appears to have failed to win support of Karachiites due to its performance, the survey shows.

The study was carried out in all seven districts of the city among the age group of people between 16 and 55 years.

Along with each party the survey also put forward the possible names of mayoral candidates before the people of Karachi.

Apart from Hafiz Naeem of JI and PSP’s Kamal, the survey sought Karachiites’ opinion regarding Wasim Akhtar of the MQM-P, Barrister Murtaza Wahab of the PPP and Firdous Shamim Naqvi of the PTI as possible mayoral candidates.

The survey shows that the JI and its Karachi chief have impressed a majority of the people of the city as 51 per cent of Karachiites would like to see him as next city mayor followed by Mr Kamal (14pc), PTI’s Naqvi (7pc), PPP’s Murtaza Wahab (5pc) and MQM-P’s Wasim Akhtar (4pc).

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2022