Karachi: Thursday was the first day of voting for Karachi’s mayor. Barrister Murtaza Wahab of the PPP and Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman of the JI are both running for the position.
The Karachi mayor and deputy will chosen today at the Arts Council of Pakistan by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
All the other candidates for mayor have dropped out, so Wahab and Rehman are the only ones running. Salman Abdullah Murad and Saifuddin are the candidates for deputy mayor for both the PPP and the JI.
The entry register shows that 303 elected members have arrived at the voting place.
With 155 seats, the PPP has the most in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation City Council. But it doesn’t have the simple majority it needs to pick a mayor. The PPP also has the backing of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, but together they don’t have enough votes to make a simple majority.
With 130 and 63 seats, respectively, the JI and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) are the second and third biggest parties in the city council. Since the PTI has backed the JI, their total votes add up to 193, which is more than the 367 votes needed for a simple majority in the House.
But now that a “forward bloc” has formed in the PTI, the vote could go either way. If Wahab wins, it’s likely that both the JI and the PTI will accuse him of selling votes, and the two parties might ask the courts to throw out the election.
