Karachi set to be run by imprisoned mayor

The tenure of the city’s last elected mayor, Syed Mustafa Kamal, ended almost six-and-a-half years ago

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) most likely candidate to become mayor of the port city, Wasim Akhtar, will come from prison to cast his mayoral vote today (Wednesday). The tenure of the city’s last elected mayor, Syed Mustafa Kamal, ended almost six-and-half-years ago in February, 2010.

In the future, it is expected that Akhtar - elected chairperson of the District East union committee (UC) 11 - will run the city’s affairs from jail. MQM’s deputy mayor candidate, Arshad Vohra, is the elected chairperson of District Central’s UC-49.



Akhtar and Vohra have a strong position in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) council, that comprises 320 seats. The joint opposition has fielded Pakistan Peoples Party’s Karmullah Waqasi for the mayor’s slot and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Amanullah Afridi as deputy mayor. The city is going to pick its mayor almost eight months after the much anticipated local government elections, that took place on December 5, 2015.

“An application was filed to KMC returning officer (RO) Samiuddin Siddiqui for Akhtar’s production for mayoral elections,” said Akhtar’s lawyer Khawaja Naveed Ahmed. A production letter was written by Siddiqui to the jail superintendent.

Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) chairperson Sardar Muhammad Raza has advised that it is necessary for the jail superintendent to produce Akhtar to cast his vote for the seat of mayor and deputy mayor, according to the letter. “You are requested to produce the applicant in custody with foolproof security for casting the vote on poll-day,” the letter reads.

It is between the ECP and jail authorities to decide when and how Akhtar will be produced to cast his vote, stated Ahmed. However, he said, the mayor will run the city’s affairs from wherever he will be.



Ahmed did not rule out the possibility of Akhtar’s production from jail to every session of the City Council and added that it can be possible that Akhtar will be granted bail soon. However, jail senior superintendent Qazi Nazeer Ahmed told The Express Tribune that it will be a very interesting situation as for the first time a city’s mayor is going to run the city from a jail.

“We will bring Akhtar at 8am to KMC’s old building,” informed Nazeer.  Meanwhile, Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah directed on Tuesday Sindh IG Allah Dino Khawaja to take extra security measures by enhancing the patrolling in various areas of Karachi on election-day.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2016.