PPP will hold talks with all parties except PTI regarding Karachi mayor, says Saeed Ghani

Sindh Minister for Labour Saeed Ghani said on Monday that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will hold talks with all parties competing in local government (LG) elections except Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regarding who will be mayor of Karachi.

In a press conference, he said Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) performance in the LG polls had been excellent and the political party was giving close competition to PPP.

“We have won from nearly 100 seats so far and JI is close behind us,” he said.

“The people of Karachi have trusted the two parties and we have jointly won a considerable number of seats. We won’t hold talks with PTI but we will reach out to other political parties for appointing a mayor in Karachi.”

He also clarified that elections were held on 240 seats while polls for reserve seats are due.

“The number that is being cited for majority is a bit higher than needed because elections were not held on all seats.”

Delay in results

Talking about the delay in results of the election, he brushed off the view that rigging was underway.

“In 2018 general elections, the government implemented the Results Transmission System (RTS) but the recent LG polls had a completely manual counting mechanism.This is where the delay took place.”

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said on Monday that it takes time to prepare the results and “the process is complicated”.

In a statement, the ECP said the results were being transferred to the offices of returning officers (ROs) from all polling stations and were being prepared on an Excel sheet on computers.

On Sunday, the second phase of the long-delayed local government elections in Sindh were held. The delay in declaration of results raised concerns over the transparency of electoral process and the performance of the ECP.

As the JI and the PPP claimed their victory in the polls, the MQM-P said low voter turnout was the victory of its decision to boycott the elections.

JI was leading in the elections with 34 seats followed by PPP (24), PTI (20), and TLP (1) as per the results of 78 Union Councils (UCs) out of the total 246, Aaj News reported.

Hafiz Naeem, JI Karachi chapter chief and the party’s mayoral candidate for the city, won from a UC in North Nazimabad. PTI’s candidate for Karachi mayor Khurram Sher Zaman lost his Union Committee in Saddar town to Najmi Alam of the PPP. Firdous Shamim Naqvi, PTI’s second mayoral contender, was facing tough competition from his opponents in a Soldier Bazaar UC.