Populace far away from electoral process

Karachi’s exorbitant problems require permanent solutions and no one seems to have them

KARACHI:

With general elections now just around the corner, the usual excitement and campaigning is amiss in Karachi; and most of it is down to an absence of hope and the realisation amongst the populace of broken promises of the past.

Be that as it may, Karachi Division is a crown jewel for electoral purposes. The division, which consists of 7 districts, is a battleground for 22 National Assembly seats and 47 Sindh Assembly seats. And current trends suggest that no political party has a majority in the division.

Khawaja Bilal Sethi, a social activist based in the city, feels that this is down to the lack of solutions being presented by political parties to Karachi’s problems.

“The division as a whole faces significant challenges such as lack of jobs and essential facilities, like education and healthcare. Apart from the city, the division is marred with problems like poor infrastructure and a rising crime rate.

Unfortunately, no political party has an answer to any of these issues,” explained Sethi. It is pertinent to mention that it is not just social activists like Sethi who feel that no one can end Karachi’s misery.

Dr Muhammad Ali, an associate professor at the Karachi University, who has a keen eye on the division’s politics, concurring with Sethi, was of the view that the only stopgap solution for the division’s problems was for all of its political stakeholders to work together.

However, with such unity seemingly impossible, Dr Ali predicted that no single party would secure a majority in the division and that votes would be distributed between parties based on factors such as language, community, and ethnicity. 

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Senior political analyst, Muneeruddin, agrees with the associate professor’s prediction. “Presently, no single party can achieve a clear majority in the political and electoral landscape of Karachi.

Even the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has been in power for more than a decade in the province, cannot claim to be popular in the division.

If the PPP was popular, its Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and other central party leaders, would have contested the election from here,” he asserted. “Like the rest of the country, the tanking economy has taken a toll on everyone, and therefore people are not interested in the electoral process. The populace lacks hope and is aware of the broken promises of the past,” added Muneeruddin.

Even if the political stakeholders of the division were to start a robust election campaign and offer some semblance of hope the populace, it is unlikely that people will turn up to vote come election day, according to Dr Sabir Michael, a senior social affairs expert. “Karachi is presently a hub of problems and no one is sincere enough to solve them.

Therefore, it is unlikely that the division’s populace will be interested in voting for any particular party. It is also unlikely that whoever is in government will promptly address the division’s issues,” cautioned Dr Michael, while talking to The Express Tribune.