Islamabad:   Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief  Naeemur Rehman has announced his party members will  protest the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government’s alleged use of force to win the Karachi mayoral election on June 23 (Friday) in front of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) office in Islamabad, media reports said.

Addressing a news conference in Karachi, Rehman emphasised that the protest would be of significant magnitude, aiming to hold the commission accountable for the conduct of the elections in Karachi.

He was quoted as saying by Pakistan Today: “We will question the ECP about the integrity of the polls it conducted in Karachi. The ECP must acknowledge the election as invalid and rectify all errors made during the process.”

Tensions have risen between Jamaat and PPP following the hard-fought election of Murtaza Wahab as the mayor of Karachi last week. The PPP had forged an alliance with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), which gave them a combined strength of 173, while Jamaat enjoyed the support of 61 members from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), resulting in an expected vote count of 192 for its candidate Rehman, the newspaper reported.

In the election, Wahab managed to secure all 173 of the anticipated votes, whereas Rehman fell short with only 160 votes due to 30 union council members abstaining from the polling process.

Jamaat alleged that the provincial government exerted pressure on PTI members and has rejected the legitimacy of the polls.