Lukewarm turnout on cold day for polls

With a few dozen incidents of unarmed clashes resulting in injuries to around half a dozen people, the second phase of the local government elections was conducted largely peacefully, albeit with a below-moderate turnout, in the Hyderabad division on Sunday.

Almost five million people were registered to vote in the nine districts where the contest took place on a total of 2,384 seats among more than 9,000 candidates.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which has been ruling Sindh for the last 15 years, emerged as the main contestant with Grand Democratic Alliance, Pakistan Tehreek- e-Insaf (PTI) and some other religious and nationalist parties throwing down the electoral gauntlet to the PPP. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) had boycotted the polls and appealed to its supporters to stay away from the process.

The boycott likely gave the PPP a walkover in Hyderabad, where the party had already secured 27 out of 160 seats of chairman and vice chairman in the Hyderabad Municipal

Corporation (HMC) unopposed. A small part of the Tando Allahyar district, where MQM-P enjoys support, also gave a field day to the PPP.

Clashes & squabble

At least five persons, including two women, were injured in separate clashes between the workers of the PPP and independent candidates in Bhit Shah and New Saeedabad towns of Matiari district. The aerial firing also occurred in Bhit Shah, where the armed men allegedly entered a polling station in ward number one and replaced the ballot boxes. The people outside attacked each other with batons. Two women were injured in a fight outside a polling station in union council number seven in Bhale Dino Kaka in New Saeedabad.

In Hyderabad, the workers of the PPP, PTI, Tehreek-e- Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and GDA bickered at the polling stations in union committee numbers 24, 53 and 125. However, the local leaders managed to disperse the crowds. A supporter of an independent candidate was injured in a clash with the workers of the PPP's candidate at a polling station in Bukera Sharif, Tando Allahyar district. The people resorted to a fight over the deployment of a male policeman in a ladies' polling station.

The supporters of Jamshoro Ittihad and the PPP quarrelled in ward number 5, 6 and 8 in Jamshoro district, but the police controlled the crowd. The brawls also took place inside the wards numbers 1 and 2 of the Jamshoro town committee. The results from both wards have been stopped.

MQM-P

The MQM-P's Rabita Committee member Sohail Mashhadi, former deputy mayor of HMC, demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should cancel the LG elections given the low voter turnout. Talking to the media in Hyderabad, Mashhadi said the LG polls should be held anew after addressing concerns of his party regarding the delimitation of LG constituencies in Karachi and Hyderabad. He asserted that the people followed his party's boycott call and rejected the electoral process. He argued that even if the elected LG representatives are allowed to serve the people, they will fail to deliver because of the weak LG system. Mashhaid said the PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami's dual policy against the PPP has been exposed, arguing that by participating in the polls the two parties played in the hands of the PPP. He deplored that the supreme court's order of making the LG institution strong and empowered has not been implemented.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) claimed that it waived the load shedding on directions of the ECP to facilitate the voters and the polling staff.