JI moves SHC against 'unelected' mayor amendment

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Wednesday challenged the amendment of the Local Government Act to elect unelected persons as mayors in the province in the Sindh High Court (SHC).

According to the petition, filed through Advocate Usman Farooq, the JI maintained that the local body elections were held under the Primary Local Body Act 2013, under which the elected chairperson or mayor candidates took the oath.

They contended that under the amendment act, unelected persons were allowed to be a mayor.

The petition said that as per the spirit of the Local Government Act, the mayor should be chosen from the elected representatives, further adding that Articles 90 to 93, and 129 to 131 of the Constitution spell out the structure of federal and provincial governments.

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It continued that electing non-elected persons as a mayor would be against the spirit of the Constitution and local government acts.

The JI pleaded that the May 24 notification issued for the recent amendment be declared illegal before the mayoral election scheduled for next week.

Talking to the media outside the SHC, JI leader Hafiz Naeemur Rehman criticised the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for using ‘negative tactics’ and alleged that the PPP claimed that if the Karachi mayor was not from their party he would not receive funding.

Rehman questioned if the city was their fiefdom and said that he approached the SHC on an important issue.

“With mayoral elections being held on June 15, the Sindh Assembly passed controversial legislation based on its majority, which allows anyone to become chairman or mayor without being a member of the council. Such legislation close to the mayoral election is against the transparency of the democratic system,” he stated.

The JI leader emphasised that according to the Local Government Act, it was mandatory for the candidate to be a member of the council and the JI had joined the election for council members as per the same legislation.

He continued that a lot of time was lost in campaigning for the union committee and that putting in an outsider made for an uneven playing field. He added that the legislature eased the situation for a candidate of a particular party.

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Rehman said that the legislation was enacted in May and was implemented in December 2021. He maintained that legislation "according to the desire of the PPP" would not be accepted.

“According to the election rules, there is no obstacle to the success of the candidate of Jamaat-e-Islami,” he said.

Rehman questioned where did the Rs8 billion development budget for Sindh go, asking former president Asif Ali Zardari to provide an explanation since he “had become an economic expert”.

“The house officer of the Karachi Medical and Dental College [KMDC] is getting Rs45,000 while the Sindh Medical officer is getting more money. The system is being operated under the mindset of particular videos,” he alleged.

Rehman stated that “democracy will not be allowed to be trampled anymore”.

He said the MRI machines at Abbasi Hospital were broken but funds are being released for advertisement, and urged people to look at the plight of the city's hospitals “at the hands of those who claim to fix the country's economy”.

“The problems of municipal atrocities in the city are not discussed,” he added.