KARACHI, May 10: A continuous migration caused by the decade-long unrest in the country’s northwest is changing Karachi’s demographics and electoral mandate thus challenging the political parties’ grip on their traditional strongholds in the country’s largest metropolis and economic engine.
Pakhtuns formed just 8.71 per cent of the city population in the last census conducted in 1998. The city had been dominated by 54 per cent Urdu-speaking community, followed by 13.64 per cent Punjabis. Sindhis were 6.29 per cent, Baloch were 4.39 per cent while 13 per cent comprised other communities of around 9.8 million population of the Karachi division then.
It was the time when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had undisputed claim on over 90 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly and Sindh provincial assembly. The rest would go to the Pakistan People’s Party.
Before the MQM’s emergence in 1988 general elections, the city would elect a mixed grill of religious and business individuals and groups. But as the MQM came on fore, it virtually wiped out Jamaat-i-Islami and Shah Ahmed Noorani’s Jamiat-i-Ulema Pakistan.
Until 1997 elections, the city was almost an unconquerable fort of the party despite the fact that MQM’s chief went to the UK in exile and a controversial military operation had been launched in its dominant areas. The 1990s was the decade when the city saw its worst law and order situation.However, with the turn of century and September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, which brought the US-led coalition to attack on Afghanistan, the situation in Pakistan, especially in its Pakhtun-dominated northwest turned sour.
That was the time when six key religious parties formed an election alliance in 2002, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), to cash in on the religious sentiments that had rife against the US and began to welcome the fugitive foreigners from Afghanistan to Pakistani tribal areas.
The MMA channelled otherwise divisive votes into one, which changed the election results not only in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then North Western Frontier Province), but also in Karachi. It won five NA and seven provincial assembly seats in Karachi out of which one Pakhtun candidate from the MMA won an NA seat and four bagged provincial assembly seats.In addition, two Pakhtuns — one from the PPP and another from the National Alliance — booked places in Sindh Assembly.
The period from 2002 to 2008 election was highly crucial. It was time when Pakistani Taliban emerged and started proving their prowess in most of the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) and several districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; when the US launched drone programme to target Pakistani ‘Islamists’ and the armed forced flexed their muscles to sweep militants away from the affected parts. With unrest manifested itself convincingly, people started fleeing to safer areas, Karachi in particular. Besides, the 2005 earthquake also caused significant migration down to south.
The Pakhtuns have proved themselves as the only community in the country who don’t shy to shuffle their choices to their convenience. Unlike what they did in 2002, they changed their choice in 2008 — both in Peshawar and Karachi — and voted significantly to the Awami National Party (ANP).
The ANP bagged two seats — one each from Karachi east and west — in addition to a Pakhtun candidate from the PPP who won it second time from Keamari. With the MMA became history and Jamaat-i-Islami’s boycott no Pakhtun-dominated religious party could win a seat in the metropolis.
Since 2008, the influx of people migrating from the northwest because of security or economic reasons has been spectacular. In fact the migration was phenomenal when the armed forces evacuated tribal regions to launch offensives against the militants. Such migration coupled with the economic migrants and flood-affected people from the rest of Sindh has significantly changed the city’s demographic complexion, according to analysts.
Gul Mohammad Kalmati, who has chronicled the history of Karachi in several books, says Pakhtun population was next to dominant Urdu-speaking people, which could be between three to four million. Besides, Pashto-speaking Afghan refugees also reside significantly in the town.
It makes the city hosting largest Pakhtun population, more than Peshawar, Kandahar and Quetta.
“Unlike 2008 elections, some 80 per cent of Pakhtun voters who live in Karachi have got their votes registered here that could cause a significant impact on elections despite the fact that delimitation of constituencies have divided their votes to great effect,” says Mr Kalmati.
He believed the ANP would win three PS seats and could win NA-254 in by-election where election had been postponed because of the assassination of ANP candidate Sadiq Khattak and his four-year-old son.
For coming elections, the ANP has fielded 12 candidates on the city’s NA seats and 25 on provincial assembly seats.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, also predominantly Pakhtun religious party, has fielded candidates on three NA and eight PS seats and majority of them are Pakhtun.
PML-N has fielded Humayun Khan on NA-239 while some of Jamaat-i-Islami candidates also ethnically belonged to this community.
Many Pakhtun leaders believe the ‘unjust’ delimitations had deprived them of their just portion in the elected forums.
One of the examples to show the ‘unfair delimitations’ given by a Pakhtun leader is this: “The strip from Bangash Colony to Nusrat Bhutto Colony has dozens of Pashtun localities, including Paposh Nagar, Dir Colony, Pirabad, Khwaja Ajmer Nagri and Qasba, etc, but the area has been divided among three provincial assembly seats, which is not fair and as a result no one from us could win,” he said.
However, Pakhtuns also blame themselves that they still stop their women from casting their votes. “This has to be changed. We’ll have to encourage our women to cast their votes and stop banning them from being represented,” says Sindh ANP secretary general Bashir Jan who has survived three attempts on his life.
Farhan Hanif Siddiqui, who teaches at Karachi University and has PhD in ‘ethnic movements of Pakistan’, said the ANP was likely to retain the two seats it won in 2008 but would not get more.
He said a feeling of insecurity could force the community again to vote for the ANP, which emerged to safeguard the Pakhtuns in town.
“Pakhtuns in Karachi have a siege mentality because of law and order situation, which will force them to cast their votes in favour of the ANP, a party that gained reputation to raise voice for the safety of the community,” he said.