Analysis: Multiple tiers of authority and the clash over municipal services.

Byline: Erum Haider

KARACHI -- In the early hours of Jan 25, in the Ghanchi Para neighbourhood of Karachi, an elected MPA was shot in the leg. Several news outlets reported that the suspect was an elected UC vice-chairman, and that the dispute was over water. I can't think of a more grim and perfect metaphor for this city: multiple tiers of authority and power, clashing over basic municipal services.

Exactly a week before the incident, I drive through Ghanchi Para, and notice that Nishtar Road is badly flooded. The road leads to several important markets in the area, including Timber Market, a collection of over 300 shops and warehouses. The Karachi Timber Market Group's leadership is central to improving services such as electricity in this neighbourhood, often directly negotiating with utility companies and the water board for service improvement.

Nishtar Road is also a direct route to the PTI's spacious, comfortable new office in the constituency. MPA Ramzan Ghanchi [who was shot at] has tried to make it as accessible as possible. But now there are repairs happening on the road leading to his office, and the whole neighbourhood is complaining to the lawmaker about their water problems.

Ask anyone in the neighbourhood, and the story is the same: 'Roads have been broken, sewerage has been blocked,' says one woman. A PTI local councillor throws up his hands in despair: 'The water board is in their hands.' He means the PPP.

The man accused of being involved in shooting Mr Ghanchi in the leg a week later is Suleman Soomro, the president of the Karachi Timber Market Group. Mr Soomro is vice-chairman of Union Council 16 in district South, where an independent candidate won the last local government election. In district South, PPP controls the chairmanship, and offered the PTI the vice-chairmanship. So who gets to pull rank when there is a water dispute, and whose influence matters more for enforcing service delivery?

Between the Local Government Elections in 2015 and the General Elections in 2018, Karachi has emerged as a dizzying patchwork of electoral and administrative power. And voters know this. In January 2019, just days before the MQM would comfortably win its by-election in Korangi, I was chatting with a group of women in PS-94. They had voted for the PTI in the 2018 national elections, for the MQM in the 2015 LG elections, and for the PPP in every election previous to that.

The MQM had brought them water connections and cleaned their...