Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani has offered mediation between his party, Pakistan Peoples Party, and Jamat-e-Islami (JI) in the matter regarding the Karachi mayor’s appointment if the latter’s candidate for the slot, Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman, agrees to become the deputy mayor.
The proposal came in response to a question during Ghani’s media talk in Karachi. The minister volunteered to earnestly persuade the top leadership of his party if Naeem accepts the offered post, saying that PPP desired to take along all political parties which had won seats in the local government elections in the city, to manage Karachi’s affairs.
PPP has become the single largest party with 155 members, including the reserved seats, in the 367-strong house after the LG polls.
Currently, no single party has a simple majority of 179 votes in the house, the count that is needed to ascertain who wins the coveted seat of the port city’s mayor. As per the latest statistics, the total number of the PPP, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) is 175.
On the other hand, the JI has emerged as the second largest party with a total of 130 seats, including reserved seats, while Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) bagged a total of 63 seats. The alliance between the two parties stands at 193.
