Purported audio recordings involving key leaders from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) have lent support to allegations by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) that the February 8 elections have been manipulated and their electoral mandate was usurped.

In these recordings, Kamran Tessori, the Governor of Sindh, is purportedly heard expressing issues over the authenticity of their mandate, stating it was “100 per cent fake”.

Tessori detailed the MQM-P’s shift in allegiance from PTI to the Pakistan Democratic Alliance in April 2022, a transfer that was unfavourably acquired by their citizens.

He reminisced concerning the 2018 elections when MQM-P secured seven National Assembly seats in Karachi, attributing it to a real support base.

“Today (February 8 polls) we didn’t get votes,” the Governor is heard saying.

In the February 8 election, PTI-backed candidates received 92 National Assembly seats, surpassing the tallies of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Despite this, a coalition was fashioned between PML-N, PPP, and different events, sidelining PTI and its associates.

In the purported audio, Tessori additionally voiced his grievances concerning the distribution of energy, highlighting that MQM-P was being provided minimal illustration in the federal government.

“What we are getting now is one ministerial position. They even want to take away the governorship and worst of all we have lost the confidence and trust of our voters now,” a report in the newspaper Jang stated, quoting Tessori.

Another leaked audio with MQM-P’s Senior Deputy Convener Mustafa Kamal revealed discussions with the PML-N delegation, indicating strain from PPP to marginalise MQM-P because of the alleged illegitimacy of their mandate.

“We met the PML-N delegation and they told us two things — the PPP is saying that the MQM-P’s mandate is 100 per cent fake and since PML-N and PPP have the required numbers in the parliament to form the government, the MQM-P should be sidelined,” Kamal is heard as saying in the audio.

Kamal confirmed the claims made in the audio clips however dismissed them as recurrent accusations from political adversaries.

The MQM-P clinched 17 National Assembly seats in Karachi. The PTI claimed that in all of the successful seats, the MQM-P candidates weren’t even in third place.

The PTI has alleged that its 90 National Assembly and over 100 Punjab Assembly seats have been stolen by the institution and distributed among the many PMLN, MQM-P and PPP to type the “fake governments.”

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