Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Saeed Ghani won the by-election in PS-114, Karachi, by securing 23,840 votes on Sunday.

According to unofficial results, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Kamran Tessori remained at the second spot with 18,106 votes. There were a total of 193,000 registered voters in the constituency.

PML-N’s Ali Akbar Gujjar and PTI’s Muhammad Najeeb Haroon got 5,353 and 5,098 votes, respectively.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and former president Asif Ali Zardari both congratulated Ghani on his victory.

“We won in mini-Pakistan (PS-114) today. We will, Inshallah, win all over the country in 2018,” Bilawal said. He said that victories of PPP candidates from Karachi to Gilgit-Baltistan were the real change that the people of Pakistan wanted. “By-elections in Karachi and Gilgit Baltistan are just an indicator of entire country’s aspirations,” he said.

Earlier, tight security arrangements were made for smooth conduct of polling. However, clashes between political workers were still reported from the constituency. Voting was halted at polling stations 79, 85, 86, 87 and 90, and was resumed after additional contingents of the Rangers arrived at the scene.

The seat had been won by the MQM in 1990, 1993 and 2008 elections. Irfanullah Marwat won it in 2013. Marwat’s victory was later declared void by the ECP in 2014. His appeal against the decision was rejected in 2017 by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, July 10^th , 2017.