By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won maximum number of seats in a local government poll for Karachi but fell short of a majority, results showed on Monday, so requiring a coalition partner to elect its major in the country’s commercial capital.
The PPP bagged the majority votes by securing 93 seats in the union council. Local government elections were held in Karachi on Sunday to elect members of local councils who will then elect the mayor of the city.
The fact that no one party got majority votes in the election will complicate the mayoral race.
According to official results of 235 seats released by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the PPP has won 93 UCs, followed by the JI, which took 86 seats, and former premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which bagged 40 seats.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif won seven seats, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUIF) got three, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan got two and the Muhajir Qaumi Movement got one seat while independent candidates bagged three union committees. Polling on 11 seats was postponed due to the death of the candidate.
Opposition parties alleged that the were rigged, after a 30-hour delay in publishing results the provincial election commission, to favour the ruling party.
Election authorities defended the delay in release of official results, denying any irregularities in the electoral exercise.
The second round of local government elections was scheduled to take place on July 24 last year, but the Sindh government refused to hold the polls on the lack of security and police presence due to last year’s flooding.
Local government polls in Sindh were held after the ECP rejected repeated requests of the provincial administration to delay the elections in Karachi and Hyderabad due to concerns raised by the MQM-P over the delimitation of constituencies.
The party, which has a major presence in these urban centers, raised the allegations of “pre-poll rigging” before announcing not to participate in the voting contest.
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