What does MQM-P, PML-N electoral deal mean for Karachi and PPP's urban politics?

In early November, a Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) delegation visited the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leadership in Lahore and a joint political strategy was announced which the PML-N termed as an ‘electoral alliance’ but which the MQM-P was quick to deny and instead reiterate that the partnership was merely a plan for ‘seat adjustment.’ 

The fact that the meeting led to two different statements tells one much about the casual, lazy and incoherent politics and political culture that dot the country today. The two parties also reiterated that a six-member committee will draft a charter of resolutions over the next 10 days, which till the writing of this article has not been made public.

The MQM has in the past allied with the PML-N, PPP and most recently, the PTI, at the centre for political dividends. This has been a routine practice for the party since the 1990s. For the PML-N historically, Karachi has always presented an electoral challenge with its representation at its weakest. It was only in the last election that the PML-N took Karachi seriously by fielding a heavyweight, Shahbaz Sharif, who lost in a closely fought race with the eventual winner, the PTI’s Faisal Vawda. 

Despite its electoral failings, successive PML-N governments in the 1990s and 2000s were responsible for initiating a security operation in Karachi. The two security operations, however, did not fracture the political relationship between the two parties. This is reflected far more painfully in the MQM-PPP conflict dyad which continues to endure as the two compete for administrative powers in Karachi.

The current electoral partnership can be explained concerning the following arguments. First, for both the MQM-P and PML-N, the real challenge pertains to undermining the PTI’s growing popularity in urban Pakistan. The last two elections in 2013 and 2018 witnessed an intense upswing in PTI’s support base in Karachi. The urban middle class voted in numbers signalling the mobilisation of a ‘silent majority’ frustrated with the violent and archaic politics of the MQM.

The fact that the PTI was able to offset MQM’s thirty-year electoral stronghold over the city was no mean achievement. More recently, the Jamat-i-Islami has emerged as a major electoral competitor winning the second-largest number of seats in the local elections in Karachi. Furthermore, the TLP represents a third political force whose vote-getting ability led to two seats in the Sindh provincial assembly in the 2018 elections.

All in all, Karachi now represents a split electorate where the MQM-P stands to compete with four major contenders: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and also the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). An electoral partnership with the PML-N allows it to pitch the argument to its constituents that it has made the right deal with a party likely to form the next government given the PTI’s falling out with the military establishment.

The benefit for the PML-N in case of a seat adjustment with the MQM-P allows it the probability of winning seats from Karachi and in doing so, it presents the opportunity to go beyond its “Punjab only” party stigma and project itself as a federal party.

Second, the MQM-P's relations with the PPP are at a historic low, even more so than the first falling out with the PPP government in 1988 which led to pitched battles on the streets of Karachi between the two parties. With the new local government law, the PPP has provincialised local government to its advantage leaving little to no room for any rapprochement between itself and the MQM-P.

It is also attracting former MQM stalwarts into its fold with Raza Haroon and Anees Advocate joining the PPP as both parties prepare themselves for the electoral round. Furthermore, with its electoral victory in the local government elections and its own Mayor, the PPP presents an acute challenge to the MQM’s political power at both the local and provincial levels. MQM-P’s best bet, thus, hinges on the federal government level where it is likely to procure a couple of ministries in the post-election scenario.

Will the PML-N, MQM-P electoral partnership make a difference in Karachi? 

While the MQM-P could certainly instrumentalise its ethnically charged anti-PPP rhetoric as a vote-getting strategy, it faces stiff competition from a younger generation of voters blind to the politics of the 1980s and 1990s when the MQM held the reins of power in the city and are now attracted more towards the PTI, JI, and the TLP as electoral choices.

These choices based on a mix of public policy slogans such as efficient service delivery, good governance, quality education, employment generation and also attention to religious identity politics provide far more robust alternatives to the MQM, the latter fractionalized due to internal squabbles and the sidelining of its supremo, Altaf Hussain.

In short, the MQM-P needs to reinvent itself and reconnect with Karachi’s public which is in an anti-incumbent mood and has not forgotten that under the MQM, Karachi descended into a city of chaos, violence, killings, crimes, turf wars, and extreme insecurity for its residents.

Karachi’s residents yearn for change, peace and stability for which they now hold not only the PPP but also the MQM responsible. In the last ten years, they have displayed their electoral preference for new parties, and this is unlikely to change in the next elections. While Karachi’s public will vote for the new parties, it is the counting of the ballots (or those who count them) which unfortunately will be the decisive factor in the next elections.

Farhan Hanif Siddiqi is an associate professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He can be reached at [email protected]. He posts on X @FarhanHSiddiqi

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