MQM Wins again
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN

 

Erasing every doubt from the mind of skeptics, MQM once again scored a decisive victory in the third phase of local body elections in Karachi last week.

Nonetheless, I won’t expound on how and why the Sindh-based political party has won the elections, nor would I thrash the voters for voting in favor of ‘corrupt politicians’ and ‘criminal elements.’ As the bottom line, for me, stays crystal clear: despite all the negative publicity in local and the international media and in spite of the allegations of its involvement in violence and crime, MQM has managed to retain the confidence of an overwhelming majority of the Urdu-speaking immigrant population of the city. They voted in favor of Altaf Hussein no matter how deep his legal problems appear to the rest of the world.

Instead, I would like to focus on the political paarties who lost the elections when they thought they had nailed the MQM down after two years of hard work. Having properly identified them I would also want to touch upon the reasons why they failed to grab the spills of an ‘endangered political party.’

So, tell me first, who do you think has lost the elections last week? Do you reckon it was the political alliance led by Imran Khan’s PTI and the Jamat e Islami (JI) under the leadership of Siraj ul Haq? True, yet, politicians were not alone who had to face a humiliating defeat; the powers who forged their alliance and provided them a media boost too have fallen flat on the ground.

To put it in a different perspective, and by using Imran Khan’s own analogy, let me say that MQM t ook at least three wickets in a single delivery. First, as we know, it demolished the facade of a strong opposition built by PTI and JI. Second, it has thrown a hard bouncer to the ill-informed media commentators who neither understand the dynamics of the city, nor can relate to the insecurities of the Urdu-speaking population. And the last, MQM has retaliated against the umpire, the third party, who was supposed to create a conducive environment for all political parties, a fair play in which everyone was offered an equal opportunity to convince the voter. However, lop-siding in favor of the opposition, the umpire involved himself in a witch-hunt against the MQM, and that was a mistake, a blunder that turned the chips in favor of the troubled party.

To understand it better, let us go back in time: when the Karachi operation started a couple of years ago, it was supposed to be directed at all the criminal elements irrespective of their party association-if there existed association. MQM being one of the parties agreed with the objectives of the plan. The goal was to reduce the crime rate in the city and jump start the economy which was stagnating.

In the first few months, as the operation yielded positive results and the rate of target killings and street robberies dropped, the pro-establishment parties like the PTI celebrated the outcome, while the MQM stood quiet, unsure about the next phase.

Don’t get me wrong, people of the city felt relieved too. The economy began to kickoff and the real estate prices soared, a sign of returning investors. Many critics thought the success of the operation meant a loss of popularity of the MQM, which had some truth, but not all. Imran saw that as an opportunity too and jumped right in with his usual harsh anti-Altaf rhetoric. His idea was simple: the more you demonize MQM and its leadership, the more supporters you can pull from the pool of independents, the silent majority, who can lead PTI to electoral victory if energized enough to cast their votes. His message of non-ethnic transparent politics appealed to the masses and clicked as much with the youth of Urdu-speaking people as it did in Lahore or Rawalpindi. They felt confident that the change they were all rooting for was knocking at their doors.

So far so good, till one day the Rangers stormed into the MQM headquarters and detained its workers. “Could they raid the PTI headquarters too, like that?” MQM supporters started questioning. “Can they even think of entering the residence of Bilawal Bhutto in Clifton to capture few guns?” they asked. “Is this operation targeted at the criminals or the party? Or even worse: “Do they think it's the same?” They were legitimate questions that needed to be addressed, but were conveniently ignored as usual.

After that raid, Karachites noticed the operation had transgressed from its original goal and had got more and more pointed towards the MQM. Its workers were getting arrested, tortured and went missing without ever being produced in the courts. A crime was thus being committed to stop another crime which, inconspicuously, pushed the balance the other way. You could sense it after the previous bye-elections in Karachi. The popularity ratings had started to slide down then. It was not the MQM’s graph this time, rather it was the Rangers' who were being blamed for their extrajudicial ‘activities.’

Imran did not see the balance swinging on the other side, and kept on urging a stricter operation, even when some of the torture techniques were leaked to the media. The Urdu-speaking people knew he had a soft corner for Taliban as he always favored negotiations with them, but when it came to the MQM, they noticed his warmth and tenderness evaporated and his heart turned cold. He wanted strong action. That indifference had to cost him in the elections, although he did not realize it then. Now his party advocates are blaming the Karachites for voting them out. They do not understand that no one favors crime and corruption, however people can live with it if the alternative is political persecution.