Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to nominate Khurrum Sher Zaman as their candidate for Karachi’s mayorship.
Sources say that the official decision would be announced by PTI chief Imran Khan. PTI officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the party has also finalized its strategy for the upcoming local body polls in the Karachi and Hyderabad divisions of Sindh.
Ali Zaidi, a former federal minister, will be the head of the Sindh poll cells. While Bilal Ghaffar has been charged with maintaining the Karachi-specific cell.
The general election cells in Sindh would be under the direction of senior PTI leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi.
Local government elections in Hyderabad and Karachi will take place on January 15, 2023, per the schedule published by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
On November 22, the ECP announced the LG elections in Hyderabad and Karachi.
The commission asked the relevant parties to ensure that local body elections are held on the specified date in accordance with Article 220 of the Constitution and to provide an adequate number of security personnel for election duty at polling places, offices of district returning officers, returning officers (ROs), polling staff, and transportation of polling material.
PTI’s Karachi President Bilal Ghaffar lauded ECP’s announcement of the date for holding the local body polls.
He hoped that “this time the ECP would hold the LG elections per the constitution and the law”. Ghaffar said people are fed up with the provincial government for “using delaying tactics to postpone the second phase of the LG polls.”
Sindh’s ruling party also assured the ECP that it will hold the LG polls in the province on the designated date.
The provincial government is prepared to ensure the smooth running of the second phase of the LG elections, according to PPP Sindh President Nisar Ahmed Khuhro.
He projected that the PPP will win in the second round of voting in a similar manner to how it had achieved in the first.
The JI also released a statement hailing the ECP’s decision. The party’s Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman also demanded that the electoral body prevent the PPP government from “conspiring against the LG polls”.
