KARACHI: The Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), one of the major stakeholders in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, on Sunday held a power show at the city’s iconic Bagh-e-Jinnah venue, where its leaders said the party would gain a thumping majority in urban centers of the southern Sindh province in Feb. 8 national elections.
The MQM-P is an offshoot of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which has historically held sway in Sindh’s urban areas, particularly Karachi, where it claimed to represent the Muhajir community, which comprises Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.
The Bagh-e-Jinnah park, located adjacent to the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is a venue that has often been used by parties as a symbol of political might that can help gauge public support.
Sunday’s public gathering, the maiden election rally held by the MQM-P since the recent unification of its various factions, was addressed by party leaders who previously led their own separate groups.
“The MQM-P will once again win with a huge majority in Karachi and other parts of Sindh,” MQM-P chief Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said, while addressing the attendees.
Mustafa Kamal, who merged his Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) faction into the MQM-P last year, criticized the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has been ruling in Sindh since 2008, for trying to turn the masses against the MQM-P by provoking them for a boycott of elections as urged by the party’s estranged, London-based founder Altaf Hussain.
“The people have given their decision that the sureties of the opponents will be seized in the election,” Kamal said, adding the PPP was attempting to cover up its poor performance by relaying the boycott announcement from London.
Founded by Hussain in 1984, the Muttahida Quami Movement first split into two factions, the MQM-Haqeeqi and the MQM. In 2016, Kamal, a former Karachi mayor, announced the formation of the PSP.
But Hussain continued to wield power over the largest faction, the MQM, and enjoy the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of workers and supporters until 2016, when his anti-Pakistan speech at a party meeting forced majority of his loyalists to part ways with the MQM and form a new faction, the MQM-P.
Over the subsequent years, the MQM-P further split into two factions owing to internal rifts. Last year, these factions, except of the Hussain-led MQM and the MQM-Haqeeqi, reunited under the leadership of Siddiqui.
With national elections just weeks away, the MQM-P is struggling to reclaim its lost political ground in the face of the election boycott call by its London-based founder and amid growing popularity of former premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which secured 14 out of 21 parliamentary seats in Karachi in the 2018 general elections.
Recent victories by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) religious party and the PPP in the local government elections in Karachi have further put the MQM-P on the defensive, grappling to woo voters ahead of the national polls.
With Bagh-e-Jinnah rally, Karachi’s key political party aims to win big in elections in southern Pakistan
https://arab.news/wu2n8
With Bagh-e-Jinnah rally, Karachi’s key political party aims to win big in elections in southern Pakistan
- This was the first election rally held by the MQM-P since the merger of its various factions last year
- The party is struggling to regain its lost political ground amid a boycott call by its estranged founder
EU, Pakistan sign €60 million loan agreement for clean drinking water in Karachi
- Project will finance rehabilitation, construction of water treatment facilities in Karachi city, says European Investment Bank
- As per a report in 2023, 90 percent of water samples collected from various places in city was deemed unfit for drinking
ISLAMABAD: The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Pakistan’s government on Wednesday signed a €60 million loan agreement, the first between the two sides in a decade, to support the delivery of clean drinking water in Karachi, the EU said in a statement.
The Karachi Water Infrastructure Framework, approved in August this year by the EIB, will finance the rehabilitation and construction of water treatment facilities in Pakistan’s most populous city of Karachi to increase safe water supply and improve water security.
The agreement was signed between the two sides at the sidelines of the 15th Pak-EU Joint Commission in Brussels, state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
“Today, the @EIB signed its first loan agreement with Pakistan in a decade: a €60 million loan supporting the delivery of clean drinking water for #Karachi,” the EU said on social media platform X.
Radio Pakistan said the agreement reflects Pakistan’s commitment to modernize essential urban services and promote climate-resilient infrastructure.
“The declaration demonstrates the continued momentum in Pakistan-EU cooperation and highlights shared priorities in sustainable development, public service delivery, and climate and environmental resilience,” it said.
Karachi has a chronic clean drinking water problem. As per a Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) study conducted in 2023, 90 percent of water from samples collected from various places in the city was deemed unsafe for drinking purposes, contaminated with E. coli, coliform bacteria, and other harmful pathogens.
The problem has forced most residents of the city to get their water through drilled motor-operated wells (known as ‘bores’), even as groundwater in the coastal city tends to be salty and unfit for human consumption.
Other options for residents include either buying unfiltered water from private water tanker operators, who fill up at a network of legal and illegal water hydrants across the city, or buying it from reverse osmosis plants that they visit to fill up bottles or have delivered to their homes.
The EU provides Pakistan about €100 million annually in grants for development and cooperation. This includes efforts to achieve green inclusive growth, increase education and employment skills, promote good governance, human rights, rule of law and ensure sustainable management of natural resources.
