KARACHI: Former ruling party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will hold talks today, Wednesday, with the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) in hopes of convincing the latter to withdraw its candidate from a key Karachi constituency in favor of former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, a PML-N leader confirmed.
The PML-N has traditionally enjoyed electoral support in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province. However, the party thinks it has a strong chance of winning Karachi’s NA-242 constituency. The PML-N won the NA-242 constituency, previously NA-249, in 1993. During the general elections of 2018, the party fielded Sharif from the same constituency, who ended up losing to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate by a narrow margin despite polling over 34,000 votes.
The MQM-P has remained a key political player in the southern port city of Karachi. Founded as MQM in 1984 by controversial Pakistani politician Altaf Hussain, it has been divided into several factions since 2016 when it distanced itself from Hussain. Siddiqui leads the MQM-P faction currently.
MQM-P leader Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui refuted media speculation that both parties had reached a deal on Wednesday, saying that the party would field former Karachi mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal as its candidate from NA-242.
“There is no truth in the news circulating about seat adjustment in NA-242 constituency,” Siddiqui said in a statement shared by the MQM-P, adding that Kamal, the party’s senior deputy convener, was its candidate.
Nasiruddin Mehmood, a PML-N leader who is involved in the ongoing talks with the MQM-P, confirmed both parties had failed to reach an agreement on the matter, adding that the party wanted to field Sharif from the constituency.
“The news [about seat adjustment] being aired is based on assumptions,” Mehmood told Arab News. “No agreement was reached on this seat, leading to the decision that both parties’ senior leadership will directly contact each other.”
Mehmood said both parties would speak to each other on Wednesday evening after which the situation would become clearer.
Zia Ur Rehman, a Karachi-based journalist and researcher, said the PML-N sees the upcoming polls as a significant opportunity for it to win the NA-242 seat with the MQM-P’s support.
He pointed out that the PPP was aiming to dispel the impression that its vote bank is limited to Sindh only by fielding its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, from a Lahore constituency. He said the PML-N was aiming to dispel the impression that it has support only in Punjab by fielding Sharif from Karachi.
“PML-N aims to overcome any regional limitations by electing its central leader from Karachi,” Rehman told Arab News.
“Despite narrow losses in the 2018 general elections and the 2021 by-election, the PML-N stands a good chance,” Rehman said. “The MQM-P is actively seeking to maximize gains from the seat, considering it as still open for their party.”
Abdul Jabbar Nasir, an expert in electoral politics, said NA-242 is the only seat in Sindh that the PML-N believes it can win solely based on its popularity and without relying on an “electable“— a euphemism for candidates who have the financial resources or means to win elections.
Kamal, who served as mayor of Karachi from 2005-2010, contested the 2021 by-election from NA-242 as the head of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), securing over 8,000 votes. MQM-P candidate Hafiz Mursaleen secured 7,007 votes in the by-poll that was won by the PPP.
Last year, Kamal’s PSP merged with the MQM-P and according to Nisar, Kamal believes the party can easily win the upcoming election as the combined votes polled by the MQM-P and PSP in 2021 were more than the votes secured then by the PPP candidate.
“If an agreement isn’t reached on this seat, it’s highly likely that there will be no seat adjustment between the two in Sindh,” Nisar said.
