Sindh Assembly: PPP retains vice-like grip on Sindh

Status quo stands frozen as the PPP, MQM and the PML-F retain their old positions in Sindh.

KARACHI: Despite suffering a historic defeat at the centre and in three provinces, the PPP has surprised many by retaining its earlier position in Sindh by again winning a simple majority here.

The party has bagged 67 seats in the province, according to unofficial results. It took 68 in the 2008 elections.

Some analysts and politicians expected that the party will lose its mandate in Sindh owing to unpopular policies it pursued during its reign.

Others, however, believe that the PPP’s unwavering position had little to do with policies.

“As the party began to lose its credibility in Sindh, it pursued feudal lords and tribal chiefs,” said Zulfiqar Halepoto, a writer and analyst. “The PPP has not been rescued by its performance, but by the pirs and feudals who have joined it.”

It’s not just the PPP which has retained its traditional seats in the province. The MQM has also maintained its past position in Karachi and Hyderabad. Similarly, anti-PPP forces including the PML-F, National Peoples Party and Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s party have picked the same seats in Sanghar, Shikparpur, Tharparkar and Naushero Feroze districts as before.



“Actually, the election has been rigged on a massive scale. From the caretaker government to presiding officers, and from returning officers to district administration – all were working under political influence,” Halepoto said.

The recent election results show that if PPP had not taken shelter in the skirts of feudal lords, many of whom were earlier affiliated with other parties, it would have lost many national and provincial seats in Ghotki, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Kamber Shahdadkot and even Larkana districts, said Halepoto.

Senior journalist Sohail Sangi said that PPP has won because the people of Sindh had no alternative. “The 10 parties’ alliance, which emerged as anti-PPP force, was being indirectly led by PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif. Therefore the people of Sindh considered it yet another anti-Sindh alliance, and opted to vote for PPP.”

Transparent or not?

According to the election commission, the turnout stood somewhere between 55 and 60 per cent in this election as compared to 40 per cent in 2008, but complaints regarding delays in polling, kidnapping and harassment of polling staff and candidates and snatching of ballot boxes raise many questions over the transparency of elections in Karachi and the rest of Sindh.

Earlier, despite winning a simple majority in Sindh in the elections of 1991, 1997 and 2002, the PPP had not been able to form a government because other parties had struck deals between them, fostering ‘pockets of influence’ and thwarting PPP’s right.

However, as the 18th Amendment stipulates that only the party winning a simple majority can form a provincial government, the PPP will be able to form a government this time round.

A senior PPP leader said that it is not possible for the party to make a government without any coalition. “It is premature to comment on it, but we cannot ignore our former major coalition partner, who has a mandate in urban areas,” he said

It is therefore most likely that MQM and PPP would rejoin the coalition government in Sindh, while PML-F, NPP and other parties sit on opposition benches.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2013.