NA-253: MQM, JI make room for MWM

Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen confident of securing Shia votes.

KARACHI: In 2013, the seat of NA-253 doesn’t appear to be a sure thing for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement or the Jamaat-e-Islami, even though the former won in the 2008 elections and the latter in 2002.

MQM’s Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi won the 2008 election after bagging a hefty 96,973 votes. This year, the MQM has fielded its 2008-winner from PS-118, Muhammad Muzammil Qureshi, as its candidate for NA-253.

JI’s Asadullah Bhutto had won the NA-253 election in 2002 from the platform of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. In the upcoming elections, Bhutto will again contest as a joint-candidate of the 10-party alliance, helping him collect votes from religious and Sindhi nationalist parties.

“JI’s politics is not based on ethnic or linguistic differences - we will get votes from all areas,” said Bhutto. The MQM may face a hard time in winning the constituency without the all-out support of Shia voters as the Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) has also thrown its hat in the ring. The party has emerged as a leading political group for the Shia community and is hopeful about the 2013 elections.

“Earlier, there were only three major contenders for the NA 253 - MQM, PPP and JI - but now we have emerged as the fourth political force which will change the outcome of the results,” said MWM’s candidate for NA-253, Syed Asghar Abbas Zaidi, while talking to The Express Tribune.

Being a ‘front-line target’ for extremists, the party’s election-related gatherings were limited to residences and mosques in Shia-dominated areas of Abbas Town, Ayub Goth, Gulshan-e-Kaneez Fatima, Zehra Nagar, Hussain Hazara Goth and others.

When asked if MWM would be able to steal MQM’s Shia voters, many rejected the possibility. “I do not even know the names of MWM’s candidates for NA-253 and PS-118,” said 61-year-old Syed Asghar Ali, a resident of Gulistan-e-Jauhar, who had forsaken his support for the PPP for an emerging MQM in the 1980s. “The MWM is a reactionary movement that will fade-away. Around 90 per cent of the Urdu-speaking Shias vote for the MQM.”

Other key players

PPP has given its ticket to a relatively less-known candidate, Muhammad Murad Baloch. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Ashraf Qureshi said that his party will attract educated voters across the board. “PTI’s strength lies with the silent majority that will change the outcome on the day of election - underestimating our potential would be a grave mistake.”

The Awami National Party is also contesting the election from NA 253 for the first time and its candidate Irshad Khan Chagharzai expects to get a minimum of 20,000 votes from the areas of Old Sabzi Mandi, Sohrab Goth, Ayub Goth, Pehalwan Goth and Dalmia Colony.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2013.