On Tuesday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) proposed Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) as a coalition partner to elect Karachi’s mayor and deputy mayor. A top PTI member reached out to JI Ameer Sirajul Haq to discuss the possibility of forming an alliance to defeat the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which had won 93 seats in the Karachi local government (LG) elections.
Sirajul Haq convened a party meeting to discuss the PTI’s offer. He dismissed rumors that Saeed Ghani, the Sindh Labor Minister, had approached him, terming them untrue.
The PPP won the most seats in the Karachi LG elections with 93, followed by JI with 86 and PTI with 40 seats. However, no single party can elect its candidate to the important position of Karachi mayor as at least 124 votes are needed.
A JI and PTI alliance could put them in a position to create the local government, leaving PPP to make an alliance with either JI or PTI to elect its own mayor.
Hafiz Naeem, JI Karachi’s chairman and mayoral candidate, claimed that the PPP had “snatched” at least 10 seats from JI. He vowed to engage in a judicial and political battle to retain these seats and argued that JI had won at least 10 more seats in various Karachi UCs than the official results indicated. His remarks were shared widely on social media.