KARACHI: There are mixed views in the city’s trading community on the sincerity or lack of it in the manifestos that have been announced by various political parties ahead of the elections that are no more than a couple of weeks away. It is not without reason that a good number of traders are lining up behind the Muttahida Qaumi Movement rather than the mainstream national parties. They find not just “practical features” in the MQM manifesto, but also a relatively better track record of delivering the goods.

But such sentiments are not overwhelming in a market that has a good number of people who take the manifestos as “routine documents” trying to sell hollow dreams to the common man. There is no effort, they argue, to practically work out ways to decrease lawlessness, to create new job opportunities through rapid industrialization, to reign in rising prices of essential items, to alleviate poverty and so on.

President of the Tariq Road Traders Action Committee (TRTAC) Siddiq Memon says traders will definitely support the MQM in Karachi and Sindh since it has taken care of the trading community as well as improving infrastructure of the city. “MQM’s manifesto is much better than those of other parties and one cannot ignore its contribution to the city’s overall development,” he adds.

On a nationwide basis, he continues, the traders are likely to support the PPP as its manifesto is “a bit more practical than the rest”.

Chairman of the Karachi Wholesale Grocers Association (KWGA) Anis Majeed says none of the manifestos has discussed the economic challenges confronting the country. The documents, he says, offer nothing new to either the trading community or to the general public. All things counted, however, the MQM may win the support of the traders in Karachi, but there will be a mixed trend of voting by the traders elsewhere in the country, he concludes.

General Secretary of the Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) Mohammad Farid Qureishi represented a large number of his community when he said he had not read the manifesto of any party. —ASK