A dash of UAE experience in Pak elections

Shaikh Salahuddin is contesting the elections on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) ticket from NA 244 constituency in Karachi which covers the areas of New Karachi, North Karachi and Ancholi where most of the middle working class people reside. This is the first time he is standing in an election.

Salahuddin, a 1975 commerce graduate from Karachi, moved to Dubai 25 years ago in search of a job. He started his own successful restaurant and catering business, Pak Arab Restaurant, in Ajman 10 years ago.

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He had always been a MQM sympathiser and actively joined the party in 1988. He was appointed finance secretary of the MQM for the UAE the same year and was promoted as UAE organiser in 1992 in which capacity he also looked after the party set-up in Qatar.

“Chief of MQM Altaf Hussain has demonstrated full confidence in me by giving the party ticket. His vision is that since I have sincerely worked abroad for the party for two decades, I must now work for the party in the country,” Salahuddin, who hails from a middle class working family, told Khaleej Times over telephone from Karachi yesterday.

The other candidate is Chaudry Sohail Zafar, who is contesting the election on Pakistan People's Party (PPP) ticket from NA 62 constituency of Jhelum.

Sohail is a 1998 graduate in administration from Eastern Connecticut State University in the US which he joined after completing college education in Sharjah. He is part of a well-established family business in Dubai. The business has been thriving for 30 years now.

He could have easily joined his father in his prosperous business but looking back to his home country and his home district in Pakistan, he saw it in a shambles. It was then that he decided to start his own struggle for “the rule of law and of the people” in Pakistan.

From the platform of the PPP, he won the council elections. He later contested the local body district elections which he lost by only three votes, and he contested the 2002 general elections from Jhelum NA 62. He was appointed PPP Jhelum district president the same year. He was jailed for one month during the recent emergency period for staging protests against the regime.

Sohail said that late Benazir Bhutto appointed and entrusted him with the PPP affairs of Jhelum while he was only 32 because she saw in him a new breed of young political leaders, well educated and brimming with latest ideas.

“I could have easily joined our family business in Dubai and enjoyed a luxurious life but I want to see change in my country,” he said.

“I want to introduce many new ideas in my home town and get rid of the decades-old corrupt administrative system. Mohtarma Benazir is no more in this world but I shall always remain loyal to her party and her son and I shall always continue the PPP's struggle,” he said.