Karachi Political Diary

 Karachi Political Diary

Mubasher Mir

After the general elections, the procedure and status of Form 45 and Form 47 are being debated in political circles.

Independent candidates supported by Tehreek-e-Insaaf staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club on the unexpected victory of MQM and announced to challenge the election results in court. In this context, the success of Mustafa Kamal, Khawaja Izharul Hasan, Dr. Farooq Sattar, Hafeezuddin Sheikh Advocate has been challenged while the success of PPP's Qadir Patel has also been challenged. Jamaat-e-Islami has filed an appeal against the successful candidates of MQM on four provincial seats. Khurram Sher Zaman has filed an appeal in the High Court. According to the Chief Justice of the High Court, the application should be filed in the Election Tribunal.

According to Barrister Salahuddin, the matter here is about declaration of results from Form 45 and Form 47, on which the law is silent, therefore the High Court must be approached.

Electoral excuses were collected in the earlier elections as well, but this time most of the candidates have resorted to Form 45. Recounting is not requested, but the returning officers issuing the result on Form 47 in the light of Form 45 is the reason for the dispute. . The candidates say that the returning officers have altered their votes. The Election Commission should immediately revise its decisions in this regard and the candidates who have the result of Form 45 should be decided accordingly. The Presiding Officers were required to display the signed final result of Form 45 outside the polling station, but this was not implemented in many polling stations. Thus, many problems have arisen and the election is being declared controversial.

The global media has also criticized issues like suspension of internet and mobile service, delay in election results. The results of the postal ballot have also not been released yet. Postal ballot results should have been compiled earlier. There is a lot of debate going on about rejected votes in the election. According to the report of the elections held in Karachi on 22 seats of the National Assembly and 47 seats of the Sindh Assembly, a total of 97 thousand votes have been rejected. This number is staggering. In the city of Karachi, where the number of educated people is very high, despite this, such a large number of votes have been rejected, as far as the turnout is concerned, it is also surprising that the turnout has been very low in some areas of Karachi. . People across the country came out to cast their votes, but in Karachi constituency PS 122, it was around 25 percent. Even in this regard, people could not be satisfied.

People's Party is the majority party in the Sindh Assembly, MQM has got the second number of votes. But Shahbaz Sharif is the majority party in Karachi. Before the election, MQM had several talks with PML-N, but Shahbaz Sharif could not contest the election from Karachi. I had reached to meet Nawaz Sharif, MQM's initiative to help the Muslim League-N to form the government has also sent a message to the People's Party that it will be an ally of the Muslim League-N in the federation, the People's Party's She will talk separately about the affairs of Sindh, while in the demands of the People's Party, the desire to make Bilawal Bhutto Zardari the prime minister is not being expressed. There is speculation that the People's Party will be offered the post of President. According to informed sources, MQM will try to get Sindh Governorship and Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker seat. While he also wants a share in the city government of Karachi.

The MQM Afaq group has also expressed concerns over the election results and has talked about protesting and taking legal action in this regard.

Former Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has expressed his surprise at the MQM getting more seats, while he should have been surprised at the Muslim League-N getting more seats. According to informed sources, Murad Ali Shah may get an important ministry in the federation, while Syed Nasir Hussain Shah is considered a very strong candidate for the chief ministership of Sindh. Although PPP sources are reluctant to speak openly in this regard, Nasir Hussain Shah is being declared as the favorite.

The political circles of the country are calling the new alignment as PDM-2. In reality it will be PDM-3 because the caretaker government was also a layer of PDM and it can be called PDM-2.

According to the Trading Economics website, Pakistan is ranked 13th in the list of most expensive countries. Food inflation has increased. The rate of inflation in Pakistan is increasing day by day. Economic analysts of Pakistan admit that the lack of continuity in economic policies is also one of the reasons while corruption has gripped the country.

Even in the recent election, politicians have been blaming each other for inflation. Currently, energy prices and currency exchange rates are very high in Pakistan. It will be a big challenge for the new government how to control inflation. The purchasing power of the people of Pakistan has reduced a lot. House and transport fares are not available to the public. This is why both living and doing business in Pakistan is difficult. The new government will have to take important decisions for this.