July 27, 2018
Former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal's Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), which comprised Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) defectors and was contesting its first-ever election, failed to make its mark as it could not win a single seat in the province.
The party chief was contesting from NA-253 Karachi Central 1, PS-124 Karachi Central 2 and PS-127 Karachi Central 5 but failed to win a single seat despite several tall claims during and before the election campaign of 'sweeping' results.
While addressing a news conference on Thursday, PSP senior vice-chairman Dr Sagheer Ahmed had said that due to certain actions the entire election seemed like a joke.
“Nobody knows where the election commission conducted the ballot count and how,” Ahmed said.
“How is it possible to count votes without the polling agents being present?” Ahmed added saying that if a ballot box is put away even for a minute, the polling process becomes suspicious.
“We reject this election because it does not seem transparent,” he added.
The former Karachi mayor who had predicted a clean sweep for his party from the provincial capital of Sindh only managed to secure 12,891 votes in NA-253. MQM-P’s Usama Qadri declared victory at the seat with 52,426 votes in the constituency.
Kamal was handed another bitter punch when he lost his provincial assembly seat to MQM-P’s Khawaja Izharul Hassan, the former opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, who secured 26,162 votes while the former mayor only received 7,605 votes.
The PSP chief also lost his other provincial seat of PS-127 at the hands of another MQM-P member Kanwar Naveed Jamil who won the seat by 29,939 votes while Kamal only received 6,383 votes.