Daily Times

Everything seemed to have been dragging the popularity of the MQM down for the past one year: corruption allegations on the party’s leaders, its association with violence, target killings, the land grabbing mafia, the murder investigation of Dr Imran Farooq and, of course, the money laundering scandal, as if MQM had been put in an oven to be baked from both the top and the bottom, under attack within Pakistan while facing even bigger challenges outside. In view of all this, sceptics like myself thought the ship has sunk enough from where it could not be salvaged but its supporters disagreed. They reckoned that with a little help the MQM could be rescued in preserving its reputation and regaining control of the city, a miracle in my eyes.
How could that help be provided? That was the question. Altaf Hussein’s long, incomprehensible and boring speeches (probably under the influence) had stopped working to motivate the workers (I am not sure if they ever did). On the contrary, they had become a source of embarrassment, a liability that could not be shrugged off. The MQM’s second tier leadership sounded confused on television, unable and sometimes unwilling to defend the party’s position. To be honest, it was not always their fault; the truth was just that the party’s position was so hard to defend. The arguments were meaningless and, most of the time, stuffed with hollow rhetoric. On the ground, the popularity of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) was on the rise, scaring the hell out of the party’s workers who at one point thought: the good old days are over, we may lose Karachi one day. Then something happened in their favour, a miracle that handed an easy victory to the Karachi-based ethnic political party that has kept its control over the city for the last three decades.
As it happens with every blessing, help did not arrive as good news, nor did it come from the well wishers of the MQM. On top of this, when it did arrive, it was not greeted as help at all. Instead, it was considered a dirty trick to malign the party and crush it to where the only way out left for it was political death. Then, one evening, just before his execution, Saulat Mirza, a former MQM worker, emerges from his death cell on television like a ghost and splatters a list of accusations all over the already tarnished reputation of the party. With that, the people who leaked the video must have thought: we have nailed the party this time. Who will support them now? Yes, it is true, no one in Lahore, Sahiwal or Rawalpindi did but the people of Karachi did not see the episode in that context. His allegations may have been true, no doubt about it, but they wondered how Saulat Mirza made that video from the lockup, a highly guarded place where even family members have to wait for weeks before they are permitted to meet their relatives. They asked themselves: why was this video released to the media? Which institution possesses such an authority?
Around the same time, in a successful raid the Rangers stormed into the MQM’s headquarters located in Azizabad, commonly known as Nine Zero. Without much resistance, they confiscated a large number of firearms (not all licenced) and declared their assault a well-coordinated attempt to clean up the city and bring peace to it. Did they think that all the other political parties ran their campaigns peacefully without carrying their own ammunition depots? Would they ever raid Bilawal House like that? I am not sure. What I am sure about is that the people of Karachi were not as oblivious. For a long time, they have suffered through and recognised the ‘incapabilities’ of the paramilitary forces. They knew these gimmicks well. But the ‘conjurers’ did not read their sentiments just as they did not read them in 1992 when they were coming up with one fantastic idea after another on a weekly basis. This time too they were busy showing weapons on television, not realising that these images, in which uniformed soldiers entered a middle-class urban neighbourhood, could evoke negative emotions.
Looking at the mood of the establishment, Imran Khan, either after getting a nod or after doing his own calculations, jumped right in with all his assault weapons to attack the MQM. We know very well that the former cricketer can be rude and beyond all limits in mocking other people and ridiculing their associations. Sometimes he makes fun of the complexion of Babar Ghauri and at other times he scoffs at the leadership of the PML-N, calling them darbaris (courtiers). So, while addressing a rally in Azad Kashmir a few weeks before the elections in Karachi, he started challenging the MQM, hoping to ignite a political wildfire, trying to create an environment of war between good (the PTI) and evil (the rest). In this way he could have gotten his sympathisers fired up enough to go out and vote in large numbers. If that was not possible, then at least he could agitate the city in an attempt to make the PTI a victim of political intolerance, which in turn might have helped him seize victory. I think the MQM understood his game and decided not to take the bait. As a result, out of nowhere, Altaf Hussein welcomed the chairman of the PTI for a public rally in Karachi. The result? A disorganised, unimpressive gathering by the former cricketer, a demonstration not of power but weakness.
From that day on, everyone knew Kanwar Naveed Jamil of the MQM would beat the PTI’s nominee, Imran Sohail. What was not clear was the margin with which he would carry his lead. A slim victory would still have been considered a defeat for the MQM since it could create an illusion of close competition. The difference, however, turned out to be as wide as it traditionally has been, disappointing both the PTI and the hands behind it.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com