JI can’t lose NA-245 and PS-115 this time — because it’s not contesting

Successive defeats compel JI to sit out the upcoming by-elections 

Karachi 

Following successive defeats in Karachi in the 2013 general polls, the NA-246 by-election and the recent local government polls, a disheartened Jamaat-e-Islami has decided not to participate in the by-polls for the city’s two constituencies, which were its strongholds in the past.

The two constituencies – NA-245 and PS-115 – fall vacant after Muttahida Qaumi Movement MNA Rehan Hashmi and MPA Arshad Vohra resigned from these seats respectively after their success in the local government polls.  The by-polls for these constituencies will be held on April 7. 

The MQM, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the Pakistan People’s Party have fielded their candidates for the two constituencies. However, the JI, the main opponent of the MQM whether it is the general or local government polls, has surprisingly decided not to contest the polls in these areas, where the party has a strong organisational structure and support base. 

Zahid Askari, the JI Karachi information secretary, said the decision was made by the party’s leadership. However, he did not give an explanation for the decision.  “Despite having severe reservations, the JI had participated in all sorts of elections in the city. But this time, it decided not to participate in the elections,” Askari told The News in a brief conversation.

He added that the JI had not announced that it would support any political party in the polls so far.   In NA-245, MQM candidate Kamal Malick faces PTI candidate Amjadullah Khan and the PPP’s Shahid Hussain. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl withdrew its candidate in favour of the PPP on Saturday.

In PS-115, the main competition is between MQM candidate Faisal Rafiq and the PTI’s Amjad Asif Jah. Political observers believe that MQM candidates are likely to win easily with a big margin as has been witnessed in previous polls for the two constituencies.

Electoral defeats

The JI has been contesting polls against the MQM since the latter’s inception and has experience of running poll campaigns in Mohajir-populated neighbourhoods. 

However, political analysts and JI members say that successive defeats in the last general polls, the NA-246 by-election and the local government polls has not only discouraged the JI from running in the elections but also raised a debate within the party.

Of the 20 National Assembly and 42 provincial assembly seats in Karachi, the JI was unable to win a single one in the 2013 general elections. 

Similarly, in the heated by-polls for NA-246 held in April last year, the JI suffered a massive defeat. The party also performed poorly in the local government polls after forging an electoral alliance with the PTI. 

The constituency of NA-245 comprises North Nazimabad, Buffer Zone, some areas of North Karachi, and parts of Nazimabad including Bara Maidan and Paposh Nagar. 

Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan, a political analyst who teaches at the University of Karachi, believes that despite a proper organisational structure and active wings of women and youth, successive electoral defeats have compelled the JI to sit out the upcoming by-polls. 

Khan said the NA-245 constituency and the Central district were once the JI’s strongholds where its central leaders Professor Ghafoor Ahmed and Syed Munawar Hasan had contested several polls and bagged significant votes.

However, he added, recent election results show that the JI’s vote bank in these areas was decreasing.

“JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman couldn’t even win the chairmanship of a union committee in Central district, even though the party had forged an alliance with the PTI.”

JI members said there was severe criticism within the party over the successive electoral defeats and the party’s policy of forming an alliance with the PTI was being blamed for it.

 “The JI in Karachi is now in a damage-control mode and logically addressing its weaknesses,” said a senior JI member in the Central district. 

Khan said the PTI’s emergence as a key political party in the city has also proven to be a setback for the JI. Many JI members, especially young ones, were now part of the PTI.

JI and Karachi’s Mohajirs

Political analysts believe the JI, after the Partition, had mustered support from the Mohajir community for various reasons, especially because of its social work for the refugees who had arrived from India.

Khan said before the Partition, the Muslim League had inroads in the lower-middle and middle class of the Urdu-speaking community in the name of Islam and after it, the JI did it successfully. 

French scholar Laurent Gayer, in his book titled “Karachi, Ordered disorder and the struggle of the city”, writes that after the Partition, government services were not even enough to meet the most basic needs of the refugees, and the JI proved more responsive to address their difficulties. 

“Between 1947 and 1954, 1.5 million refugees benefitted from welfare activities ranging from the burial of unclaimed dead bodies to the management of refugee camps and the distribution of food, medicine and clothing”, he writes.

“The success of this campaign was instrumental in the incorporation of social work into the structure of the party. In 1958 KMC polls, the JI won 18 out of the 23 seats that showed the party’s growing popularity among Karachi’s Mohajir community,” he maintained. 

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the residents of Karachi  had voted for the JI and twice elected Abdul Sattar Afghani as the mayor of the city. But after the emergence of the MQM, the JI has been on a downward journey in the metropolis.

In the local government polls in 1987 and the general polls in the following years, the MQM inflicted a major dent in the JI vote bank, which largely comprised the Mohajir community. 

Aminul Haq, the MQM spokesperson, said his party’s leadership since its inception comprised young, educated and middle-class people who worked with the community on the ground and spread political awareness.

“Since then, Karachi’s voters have rejected the JI and its pro-extremist politics and voted for the MQM,” Haq told The News.

“Now the JI Karachi think tank has decided to sit out the polls following the party’s successive defeats at the hands of the MQM.”

However, JI members deny that.

“The JI support base is still intact and its candidates still get votes. The MQM, after its emergence, has created a new support base and given new slogans to the voters,” a JI member said.

“That is why other political parties have vanished from these constituencies but the JI is still there with a proper organisational set-up.”