Following the 2013 elections, despite a significant drop in vote share, the
left-wing Pakistan Peoples Party remained the largest party in the assembly and held a comfortable majority with 91 seats. They were followed by the
secularist,
Muhajir-centric,
Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which repeated its 2008 exploits, by securing 51 seats. New additions into the assembly included
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a
welfarist,
anti-establishment party led by former cricketer
Imran Khan, who emerged as the second largest party in
Karachi and gained 4 seats. Meanwhile,
Pakistan Muslim League (F), PPP's perennial rival in Interior Sindh, held 11 seats. Following the elections for the slot of chief ministership,
Pakistan Peoples Party was easily able to form a government in Sindh for the ninth time in its existence. Party veteran
Qaim Ali Shah was elected in the role of provincial chief minister for the third time in his career, and remained at the position until 2016 when he stepped down and was replaced by
Syed Murad Ali Shah.
MQM Splits During this tenure, MQM ceased to exist as single party due to internal rifts in the wake of the party's leader,
Altaf Hussain, giving a controversial speech in August, 2016. It split into
MQM-Pakistan and MQM-London, the former in control of
Farooq Sattar, while the latter managed by Hussain, who is in self-imposed exile in London since 1991. Meanwhile, Mustafa Kamal's nascent
Pak Sarzameen Party chipped away at MQM-P members. Kamal himself being a former MQM stalwart and erstwhile Mayor of Karachi, who formed the PSP on 23 March 2016. Further still, in the lead up to
2018 Senate elections, the MQM-P faction saw another split - into Sattar's MQM-PIB and
Aamir Khan's MQM-Bahadruabad. The reason for the split being grievances over the allotment of Senate tickets.
Rise of PTI in Karachi In
Karachi,
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was seen as a better alternative for the city because of the increasing support and popularity of
Imran Khan with the help of the establishment. In May 2018 PTI Chairman presented ten-point Karachi agenda which included holding direct mayoral elections and improving the education system, healthcare and hospitals, police, business and industry, power shortages, playgrounds and sporting facilities, environment, sewerage and the
circular railway, this also attracted many people of Karachi to support PTI which never been materialized at any stage.
PTI won 21 Sindh Assembly Seats out of 43 and 14 National Assembly Seat from Karachi and emerged as the largest party in
Karachi in terms of vote bank and seats. Nearly 0.7 Million Karachi citizens voted for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. ==Results==