• Wins 20 of 28 vacant seats; results from two constituencies still awaited
• Ruling party candidates bag four of five Karachi seats
• Polling remains largely peaceful; turnout remains low

KARACHI: Amid low turnout, the Pakistan Peoples Party has won a majority of seats during the local government by-elections in Karachi and 13 other districts of Sindh.

Polling for the by-elections on 28 seats — six seats of UC chairman, seven posts of vice-chairman, two district council members and on 13 seats for general councillors — began at 8am in Karachi, Hyderabad, Matiari, Thatta, Ghotki, Sukkur, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Dadu, Jamshoro, Hyderabad and Badin and continued till 4pm in a largely peaceful manner.

According to unofficial and unconfirmed results, the PPP won a total of 20 seats, followed by Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan’s two, Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-backed candidate and an independent candidate got one seat each.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan did not contest the by-polls.

Around 160 aspirants contested the by-polls amid a low turnout and allegations of rigging by the opposition parties against the ruling PPP.

PPP wins four, JI one in Karachi

In Karachi, the by-elections were held on five seats — one UC chairman, three vice chairmen and a general member seat.

According to the unofficial results, the PPP won the sole seat of UC chairman and three seats of vice chairmen in Karachi while the JI emerged victorious on the general member seat.

According to provisional results, PPP’s Shahnila Amir secured 3,801 votes and won the UC-1 chairperson seat in Orangi Town against TLP’s Muhammad Ali who bagged 1,787 votes.

Mohammad Faisal of PPP has been elected vice chairman from UC-8 (Saeedabad) Baldia Town in Keamari district by securing 3,132 votes, followed by PTI-backed Hasnain Chohan with 1084 and JI’s Yasir Hayat obtained 769 votes.

Another aspirant of PPP Sheroz Ahmed has won the election for vice chairman from UC-8 (New Sabzi Mandi) TMC Sohrab Goth in East by securing 1,790 votes and PTI-backed independent aspirant Jaleel Ahmed stood second with 166 votes.

The PPP’s Stephen Masih emerged as the returned candidates from UC-10 (Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project) TMC Manghopir in West district with 891 votes while ANP’s Ahsanullah was runner-up with 324 votes.

JI’s Bilal Naseer has won the general member seat in UC-7 (Shah Waliullah Nagar) TMC Orangi Town in West district with a narrow margin of 40 votes against the PPP’s aspirant.

Mixed result in Hyderabad

By-elections were held on six seats in Hyderabad and the PPP and TLP won two seats each, while the remaining two seats were secured by independent candidates.

According to the unofficial results, the PPP got a seat of UC chairman and general member; TLP secured two posts of general member; an independent candidate was elected as vice chairman while a PTI-backed independent candidate won a seat of general member.

According to unofficial/provisional results, PPP’s Murtaza Shoro was elected as chairman UC-94 in TMC Sachal Sarmast Latifabad with 2,050 votes and the seat of vice chairman UC-106 of the same TMC was won by independent candidate, Qazi Khalil, by bagging 494 votes.

In UC-39 of TMC Paretabad, PPP’s Khadim Hussain Bhutto won seat of general member, TLP’s Mahfooz Ahmed and Saleem Abbasi secured seats of general member in ward-2 UC-50 of the Paretabad town and ward-3 in UC-106 of TMC Sachal Sarmast Latifabad respectively while PTI backed candidate Syed Mubashir Jaffari won the seat of general councilor ward-4 of UC-112 of TMC Shah Latifabad.

In Sukkur, PPP candidates Nazeer Ahmed and Mohammad Soobal won the seats of vice chairman and general member in Sukkur.

In Dadu, PPP’s Fateh Khichi and Sadam Hussain emerged victorious on both seats of district member and general member.

Ayub Buriro and Mumtaz Shaikh of PPP were elected as chairman and general member from Khairpur district. In Mirpurkhas, PPP’s aspirant Bahar Ali won seat of UC chairman and independent candidate Awais secured the seat of general member.

PPP’s Khalid Ahmed won seat of UC chairman in Ghotki while Raza Hameed and Ali Gohar Talpur of PPP and Faqir Daim Mangrio of GDA have won the seats of chairman, district member and general member in Umerkot respectively.

The PPP candidate Nazir Khaskheli has won the election of UC chairman in Badin while both posts of general members have also been secured by the PPP’s aspirants Abdul Basit Memon and Abdul Kareem Memon in Jamshoro district.

PTI alleges rigging

The turnout remained very low at the start of the day in the metropolis as polling stations largely wore a deserted look, but voters started to come out of their homes when the polling time neared conclusion.

PTI Karachi president Raja Azhar accused the PPP of carrying out widespread rigging and said that its MPAs and elected local government representatives freely visited almost all the polling stations with their armed guards and supporters, disturbing the polling process and influencing the polling staff.

He alleged that while the number of votes cast at a polling station (Al-Hamza School) in UC-8 (Saeedabad) Baldia Town was 149, the provisional result showed that PPP’s candidate secured 282 votes from the same polling station.

Mohammad Hussain Khan in Hyderabad, Waseem Shamsi in Sukkur, Qurban Ali Khushik in Dadu, A.B Arisar in Umerkot and Muhammad Hashim Khan Bhurgari in Badin also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2025