According to preliminary results issued early on Friday, the PPP’s Qadir Khan Mandokhail won the NA-249 by-election in Karachi after acquiring 16,156 votes after a long night of waiting. Except for a small altercation between representatives of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and PTI workers, the voting was peaceful. The election commission code of ethics was flagrantly ignored by employees and representatives of various political parties during the voting process.
The legislators were seen visiting polling stations and moving electors in their cars to vote, prompting the presiding officer to evict a few members of the Sindh Assembly from the constituency.
NA-249, Karachi West II, was formed in 2018 by combining areas that had previously been divided between two NA territories (NA-239 and NA-240) during past three national elections between 2002 and 2013. After PTI’s Faisal Vawda withdrew over his dual citizenship dispute and became a senator, the seat became vacant. There are 30 contenders in the election, including Miftah Ismail of the PML-N, Amjad Afridi of the PTI, Qadir Khan Mandokhel of the PPP, Mustafa Kamal of the MQM, and Hafiz Mursaleen of the MQM, as well as 18 independents.
In NA-249, there are approximately 339,000 eligible voters, including 201,656 men and 137,935 women, who would vote at 276 polling stations. 184 polling stations have been designated as highly sensitive, while 92 others have been designated as sensitive by the ECP. The surveillance cameras were mounted in polling stations with a high level of security.
Delhi Colony, Mujahid Colony, Baldia, and Saeedabad are some of the well-known areas in the constituency, and significant ethnicities in this working-class neighbourhood include Urdu-speaking people, Pashtuns, Kashmiris, and Seraiki-speaking people.
Amid numerous economical, political and above all the pandemic issues, ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has been going through a lot before this mighty blow further weakened their overall status. This pathetic loss of PTI has raised several questions on the credibility of the candidates along with the losing popularity of the governing party. Not to mention that this very constituency was once a stronghold of PTI with Faisal Vawda being the candidate. Now, the real query is that where the government and its representatives have been throughout this whole election campaign? And what grounds caused PTI not only to lose their seat but also its ranking dropping to fifth position after PML-N securing second position followed by banned TLP and PSP on third and fourth positions respectively?
Why PTI lost in NA-249?
Among the various reasons of PTI’s defeat, the foremost is the negligence of federal government in Sindh province due to 18th Amendment which provides provincial autonomy. It has been erroneous stereotype of federal government, not to gain vote of confidence in those areas where they lost seats. And this practice has been followed by PTI since they chaired the government. Contrary to this, PPP took the NA-249 by-elections seriously since the seat is now part of the newly formed District Kemari. This indicates that Sindh’s ruling party is attempting to improve its status in the future local government elections. PTI should accept this harsh reality that Sindh including Karachi is the fortress of PPP and it will take quite a long phase for other parties to dig their roots deep in that region.
PTI representatives for Karachi failed to perform well in their respective constituencies and this provided an edge for the rival parties to gain their support by providing what local community requires. For example, the PPP received 3,000 votes from a Pashtun-populated neighbourhood in Karachi after its Karachi representatives built drainage and sewer pipe lines in response to local notables’ demands ahead of the by-elections. Either, you call is publicity stunt or a token of love, it helped PPP securing a better position and PTI being the ruling party should have done many such projects in order to increase their vote bank.
NA-249 was one of the most important seats for both the PML-N and the PTI to gain after the Daska by-election. The general opinion of the PTI in Karachi, according to Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was also among the 14 MNAs who won from Karachi, is that its elected members have not done well.
For the record, Khan first ran for office in Karachi in 1997, around a year after his party was formed, from Burns Road.
Another obvious reason is the lack of coordination between the stakeholders of the party. Apparently, it may seem that the government has made a successful alliance but in actual, this association is nothing more than a treaty of the shining sun which will ultimately set one day. A tiny breach in the cabinet can be a nightmare for the government and the recent senate elections were the perfect reflection of this dilemma.
Furthermore, a question raises on the transparency of Election Commission of Pakistan as well that amid a very low voter turnout what took it so long for the authorities to count votes. Additionally, the cell phone of one of the presiding officer had been turned off during this entire procedure which is a big question mark on the reliability of the results. Some other issues were also raised by PML-N questioning the overall lucidity of this election.
- The writer is freelance journalist. He tweets @UmerinamPk.