Voting time for the post of Karachi mayor began on Thursday as Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Barrister Murtaza Wahab and Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Hafiz Naeem Ur Rehman fight for the position.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is holding the election for the Karachi mayor and deputy mayor of the port city today at the Arts Council of Pakistan.
The mayoral contest is between Wahab and Rehman, as all the other candidates had withdrawn their nomination papers. The respective deputy mayor candidates of the PPP and JI are Salman Abdullah Murad and Saifuddin.
According to the entry register 303 elected members have reached the polling station.
The PPP is the largest party in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation City Council, with 155 seats. However, it is short of a simple majority required to have its mayor elected. The PPP has also secured the support of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, but their combined strength is also short of a simple majority.
The second and third largest parties in the city council are the JI and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) with 130 and 63 seats respectively. As the PTI has supported the JI, their combined votes appear to be 193, which is more than the simple majority in the House of 367 members.
