KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which emerged as the single largest party with the most number of seats in the Jan 15 local government polls in Karachi, has sought early elections of city mayor and deputy mayor and asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to announce the schedule without waiting for voting in the remaining 11 union committees of the metropolis.

The fresh demand of the ruling party came when its senior member Taj Haider, the in charge of the PPP’s election cell, approached the chief election commissioner and sought his intervention for the mayoral election of Karachi.

“True, that there is a small number of seats [11] on which elections are still to be held, it is unjust that almost 250 members who have been elected to the House of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation are deprived of their legitimate right to elect their Mayor,” he said in the letter.

Interestingly, Jamaat-i-Islami, which emerged as the second largest party in Jan 15 polls, has demanded the ECP to announce the schedule for polling in 11 remaining UCs before the voting for Karachi mayor to complete the local bodies’ electoral process in order to reinstate a local government in the metropolis. The opposition party even staged a protest sit-in outside the ECP Karachi office earlier this month pressing for the same demand.

“With an elected House in place, it is desirable that responsibilities and authority under the Law is transferred to a democratically elected Mayor at the earliest. The PPP does not find any valid or legal reason for delaying the installation of an elected Mayor in his elected office and trusts that the Honourable ECP shall fulfill its legal obligation without further delay.”

The PPP’s formal contact with the ECP came weeks after the party’s Karachi chapter president and Sindh Labour and Human Resource Minister Saeed Ghani publicly demanded the constitutional body to conduct the election for city mayor before holding polls on 11 remaining UCs where elections were not held due to the death of candidates.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2023