Redrawing Karachi’s constituencies: Despite MQM ire, ECP presses ahead

All other political parties welcome the move.

KARACHI:

A potently divisive scenario is developing in Karachi.

A meeting on Friday between political parties and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the Supreme Court’s directives to redraw Karachi’s electoral constituencies saw the city’s ruling party take a strong stand on the matter. Except, the party seemed to be alone in its criticism of the apex court directives.

All other parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) representatives, and the ECP favoured the directives and its implementation.

A charged scene was witnessed at the meeting, with MQM representatives demanding to see the “exact order” of the court because of which the ECP had convened the meeting. The ECP did not have a copy of the order – and the MQM then refused to discuss the matter during the meeting, called in compliance with Supreme Court directives to the ECP to submit proposals for redrawing constituencies as soon as possible and to streamline a process within three days.

ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan was adamant that the move was a positive one and that the commission was proceeding accordingly. He said that while MQM’s demand for the court’s orders was genuine, the commission had the authority to call all political parties to evolve a consensus on the delimitation issue.

Khan added that MQM leaders were insisting on seeing the order issued by the Supreme Court, but ECP members had no copy at the moment. “We are following the verbal orders of court, which I think are sufficient for us,” he added.

The ECP secretary emphasised that political consensus was necessary to resolve the delimitation issue, and that a rough proposal was being drafted in this regard on an urgent basis. The apex court is also being updated about its progress.

Sources told The Express Tribune, however, that a meeting between the ECP secretary and the Sindh chief minister indicated that given MQM’s stand, PPP was not in a position to speed up the process. In fact, officials were directed to linger over the issue, according to sources.

Outcome of meeting

MQM Rabta committee member Raza Haroon told the media after meeting with ECP officials that “The officials of the election commission have failed to share the court orders and remarks on this sensitive issue with us, therefore we have refused to discuss the delimitation of constituencies.”



Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) demanded that armed personnel be deputed inside ‘sensitive’ polling stations in order to ensure free and fair elections. They sought one week from the ECP to submit proposals for redrawing constituency boundaries, which were originally changed in 2001 during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure as president.

Karachi’s voter woes

The most common complaint at the meeting was that under the present setup, constituencies were irrationally demarcated – in some cases, they were geographically discontinuous with three or four districts clumped together in one constituency, along with union councils from far-flung district and towns.

PPP General Secretary Sindh Taj Haider, while briefing the media, also expressed concern over votes that have been registered on permanent addresses. “Why has a controversy been created by registering votes on permanent addresses? We demand that people have the right to vote where they are presently living,” he said.

Haider added that 90% of bogus voter registration entries had been incorporated, ironically, during the electoral rolls verification process. “We believe that this kind of division in Karachi has created political polarisation. This must be stopped without any delay,” he emphasised.  The ECP secretary later refuted these claims, saying, “We are stilling working on the same and will get rid of the errors till the election scheduled is announced.”

The MQM, however, had other concerns. Haroon told the media that if delimitation was to be implemented, it should be done so all over the country. He added that delimitation could not be carried out without the census being completed – “We are in the process of finishing the census, which will provide a concrete base for the delimitation of constituencies,” he added.

Haroon was of the view that ‘some quarters’ had started a conspiracy against his party and were not willing to accept its mandate in Karachi. “We want to inform them that there is already a sense of deprivation among the people of Karachi, who will not further tolerate injustice being meted out to them,” the MQM Rabta Committee member said. He pointed out that while Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta are also in the grip of terrorist activities, the ECP and apex court did not seem interested in implementing delimitation of constituencies there.

Awami National Party (ANP)’s Bashir Jan also had issues with polling stations being shifted to areas dominated by a particular political party. He also demanded that the government organise an all parties’ conference to evolve consensus on the delimitation of constituencies

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2012.