Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) received around 27 percent of Karachi's votes in the May11 elections, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) received 56 percent. That makes the PTI the second largest political party in the city.
"We may not have won any seats but we have won people's hearts," said Arif Alvi, a central leader of the party and a candidate in Karachi's NA-250 constituency. "We expected to win at least 10 seats but our mandate was hijacked by the MQM,"he alleged.
The turnout in the May 11 election was higher than usual, and hundreds of thousands of people came out to vote, many of them for Tehrik-e-Insaaf, a party which had little influence in the city before this.
PTI candidate Arsalan Ghumman, running for the provincial PS-118 constituency, gave a tough fight to the candidate of the more influential MQM. He received 31,802votes against MQM's 56,145. The PTI candidate for NA-245, Riaz Haider, took 54,000 votes against MQM's Rehan Hashmi's 100,000 in MQM stronghold North Nazimabad. That proves wrong the assertion of some of the party's rivals that its appeal islimited to the naive, affluent elite.
The foundations of PTI's rise in Karachi were laid down during the Lawyers Movement in 2007
The PTI was also able to get more than 30,000 votes in Lyari and MQM's headquarters in the FB Area, despite allegations of rigging. The party received more than 150,000 votes in Shah Faisal Town, Malir, Mehmoodabad and Gulshan-e-IqbalTown. On the important NA-253 constituency that includes covers Gulshan-e-Iqbal, PTI's Ashraf Qureshi got 58,989 votes against MQM's Muzammil Qureshi, who won with 101,311 votes. In NA-256, PTI's Zubair Khan received 67,797 votes.
Syed Muzaffar Ali is a software engineer from Karachi who voted for the PTI. "My father voted for the MQM," he said, "but most of my family voted for the PTI, because we want to end the culture of violence and strikes in Karachi." Yasim Siddiqui, a factory worker from Mehmoodabad, said he did not vote against the MQM, but for the PTI.
There were several allegations of rigging in Karachi, and there was video evidence of wrong doings. Many of these allegations were against the MQM. "We have it on video how the MQM rigged the election in our constituency," said Ali Zaidi, a candidate from NA-242, who received 50,000 votes but lost to MQM's Rashid Godil by about 35,000 votes. "I could easily have won if there was no rigging."
The foundations of PTI's rise in Karachi were laid down during the Lawyers Movement in 2007. Dr Adnan Ahmad, a sociologist who teaches political sciences in Karachi University, says the party's support is "largely reactionary, even ethnic, and in some areas they made the right alliances." Most of PTI's workers came from the Awami National Party, the People's Party, and the Sunni Tehrik, he said. "The party is a complex blend of anti-MQM political workers, supported by voters of the upper and middle classes, who had found an avenue in the PTI to challenge the MQM inside Karachi," he said."That is something the MQM realized too late."
In MQM headquarters Nine Zero, there has been concern, anger shock and then restraint at the high turnout among PTI voters.
"We had always welcomed competition," said MPA-elect Khawaja Izharul Hasan, an MQM leader. "We have even asked for a re-election in the entire NA-250 constituency, after allegations of rigging." He said his party was not being sensitive or insecure, but was concerned about its media trial. The MQM did not "steal" mandate, he said. The people of Karachi had been voting for it consistently, even during the military operation against the party in the 1990s.
But the party's chief Altaf Hussain was criticized for his strong reaction to the allegations and protests by the Tehrik-e-Insaaf. And that reaction shows that although the PTI may not change the political dynamics of the city entirely, it will be a formidable challenge to the MQM.
Report: MQM's new challenge by Ali K Chishti
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