'He needs our votes': In Karachi, Pakistan elections test old loyalties | Elections

Karachi, Pakistan – This is the fourth general election I have covered in Pakistan in the last 16 years. In a city where colors, music and ethnicities change from neighborhood to neighborhood, each of those previous choices has been confusing.

This one has been the same: chaotic and confusing. I started the day voting at the polling station in my neighborhood. It's something I've always struggled with: Should journalists vote?

Then, as I reported Thursday from Pakistan's largest city – which has 22 seats, more than the entire province of Balochistan – I realized that not only Pakistan's democracy was at stake, but also the loyalties of the city.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party won 14 seats in the National Assembly in the 2018 elections in Karachi, separating voters from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which has traditionally dominated the scene. city ​​politician. With the MQM divided into multiple factions since 2016, its disenchanted voters found solace in Khan's party, from the affluent areas of southern Karachi to the north of the city.

I was standing outside my polling station in Clifton, just 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from Bilawal House, which is the Karachi home of the Bhutto-Zardari family, who heads the Pakistan People's Party. Historically, the PPP has been the most dominant political force in the province of Sindh, whose capital is Karachi.

However, on Thursday, the majority of people who turned out to vote in this exclusive area of ​​Karachi were PTI supporters, many of them women who had gone out at 8 a.m. to be among the first to cast their vote.

N Tariq, a 50-year-old woman who did not want to reveal her full name, said she arrived first in the morning to make sure she found the election staff in a good mood and in the hope that the voting process would go smoothly and without long delays. you wait queues.

“I'm voting for the person who is in trouble right now. He needs our votes,” Tariq said. She laughed as she said this, referring to Khan, who received multiple sentences in a variety of cases last week.

My next stop was one of the largest polling stations in Defense Phase 4, a cantonment area, run by Pakistan's powerful military, which Khan's supporters blame for derailing the party: its leaders are in jail and candidates can't even use the party. symbol.

The polling station, an exclusive neighborhood, was already full of people, but the celebratory atmosphere of the 2018 elections was missing, when I spent a few hours outside this place.

At that point, my cellular and data connection had been cut off and I could no longer communicate with anyone. As a native of Karachite, losing cellular connectivity is not new to me, but this was a day when law and order could be compromised and it was very disconcerting.

I headed towards Lyari, a PPP stronghold. As I drove through Lyari's Cheel Chowk, the normally noisy and congested area, home to decades-long gang wars, was eerily quiet. It was so quiet that I felt uncomfortable.

The flags and banners were hoisted, but there was no music, no dancing, and no blasting of Dilan Teer Bija, the PPP's viral anthem.

When I started touring different polling stations, I met many elderly voters.

Rehmat, 75, and Kulsom, 60, went together to the polling station, where I was not allowed to enter despite having accreditation. Kulsom said he would only vote for the PPP because it was the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007.

“Bilawal is their son and they have given us everything. Water, gas and brought peace to this area, PPP has given us everything. What else do we need? I will always support the PPP until my last breath,” Kulsom said. He was referring to Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the 36-year-old leader of the PPP.

Rehmat said his children do not have jobs but the PPP is also their choice.

She voted for Bilawal's grandfather – former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – in 1970, and then for Benazir, and now she is determined to vote for Bilawal.

“They work for us and take care of us. How can you not love the Bhuttos?” he said.

This was not the sentiment shared by everyone in Lyari. Mohammed Yazdan, 18, a first-time voter, said promises are made before elections but never fulfilled.

“I am voting for Imran Khan, PTI, because those who work are always brought down by them. Look what they've done to him. I will continue to support him.”

I entered the heart of the city, in the old Golimar area, a working-class neighborhood. There were small groups of Tehreek-e-Labbaik, MQM and Jamaat-e-Islami supporters on the streets helping voters.

Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a far-right party formed in 2017, gains support by centering its politics around religion. Jamaat-e-Islami, also a right-wing religious party, is among the most organized political forces in Pakistan, with a charitable wing, the Al Khidmat Foundation.

I found that voters were hesitant to admit that they were going to vote for PTI-affiliated candidates who had had to compete as independents.

A voter who wished to remain anonymous said: “I am sitting in the MQM tent sorting out my poll numbers, but my vote is always for the leader of the nation whom I cannot name. “I wanted to come today to be an election agent, but they told us there would be security problems for those affiliated with the PTI candidates.”

In the Pakistan Employees Cooperative Housing Society, a former neighborhood known locally by its acronym PECHS, one of the largest polling stations is a university campus that has an unpaved dirt entrance and steps leading down to the main courtyard. After crossing it, voters had to climb to the first and second floors to access the polling stations, making the location difficult to access for elderly people and people with limited ability to walk and climb stairs.

Dr. Raza, 60, who lives in this constituency and only shares his last name, said that this college is always used as a polling station. He said that he had written many times to the Election Commission of Pakistan asking them to reconsider the venue due to its inaccessibility for people with physical limitations.

“Whether they are fair or not, it is my duty to show up. But not everyone can do it. This electoral college is not accessible to everyone,” he said.

In Gulshan-e-Iqbal, near the city's largest national cricket stadium, voters at polling stations on a school campus complained that they had been there since 8 a.m. but that commission staff The election had not arrived until 11 in the morning and, furthermore, without a ballot. documents.

The long line snaked around the building and barely moved. As I walked through the crowd, at least eight men and women jumped from their places in line to ask me to report what was happening there and how voters were being discouraged from casting their ballots.

It was difficult to make your way through the crowd and the president who was sitting in an empty room on the same floor told me that there was nothing he could do and that yes, the staff had arrived late.

I headed to an area full of apartment complexes next to Gulistan-e-Johar. Although it was a holiday, most people continued with their daily work. The shops were open, there were day laborers and painters waiting to be hired and the shops were busy selling flowers and street food.

At a polling station inside an apartment complex, the line of women moved quickly and Rehana Razi, 81, was one of those waiting in line to cast her vote.

“I am older than Pakistan,” Razi said with a twinkle in his eye. “I am here to vote and everything has been very systematic. It is a secret who I come to vote for.”

Zohaib Khan, 36, was waiting outside the polling station with his young daughter, while his wife queued to vote. He had voted in Malir, more than 14.5 kilometers away, but his wife was allotted the polling station in Gulistan-e-Johar.

“So we have come this far because we have to vote for our PTI candidates. We want PTI to have more time to show that they can do real work for Karachi,” he said.

Karachi voters have clearly changed. However, the city's poorest neighborhoods remain as they were decades ago. Water, cooking gas, a cleaner city and an adequate sewage system remain central concerns for this city of 17 million people.

Will they ever be addressed? And in a city as complex as this, can any party really claim Karachi as its own?