Syed Mustafa Kamal

Syed Mustafa Kamal was a Senator in the Senate of Pakistan and served as the nazim (mayor) of the city of Karachi, Pakistan from 2005 to 2010. Kamal had affiliations with the Pakistani liberalist party Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Both of his parents Anis Ahmed and his mother Jamila Khatoon belonged to the Urdu-speaking Muhajir Bihari family and settled in Karachi. He was shortlisted for the World Mayor Prize in 2010. He has also served as the IT Minister for the Sindh province from 2003 to 2005. Formerly, he was a telephone operator at 90 (MQM headquarter) in Karachi. In 2013, he was elected to the Pakistani Senate from Sindh. 

According to New York Times, Syed Mustafa Kamal has left Pakistan after developing differences with Altaf Hussain. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement announced that Syed Mustafa Kamal submitted his resignation from Senate seat and left Pakistan due to personal and family reasons. On August 05 2015, It was reported in many media outlets that ex Mayor and former member MQM traveled to Islamabad to attend important meetings. This was reportedly his first come back visit. Mustafa Kamal after leaving the political party, joined Malik Riaz’s company Bahria Town.

Foreign Policy magazine 

In 2008 many Pakistani newspapers published articles claiming that foreignpolicy.com had named Karachi’s mayor, Mustafa Kamal, "the second best mayor in the world." Foreign Policy editor Joshua Keating confirmed that reports were not true. 

Return to Pakistan 

After leaving pakistan in August 2013, he returned from Dubai to Karachi, Pakistan on March 3rd, 2016, accompanying Anees Kaimkhani and holding a press conference in a rented apartment on the same day at 3:00 PM.

Mustafa Kamal divided his speech into three parts as following:

Why did he leave the country in the first place?

Why has he returned now?

Now that he has returned, what will he do?

In the first two parts, he opened up about his life-long personal experiences as a prominent member of Muttahida Qaumi Movement and what made him leave the country even when he was serving as a senator at the time.

He discussed several controversies surrounding MQM, the leader Altaf Hussain and his behavior towards the party members. How members of Rabita Committee are most aware of the way Altaf Hussain operates the party under the hood.

In the last part, Mustafa Kamal disclosed the vision of a new party he is laying foundations of, the name of which is not decided yet. According to him, "Today we are laying the foundation of an organisation, you may call it a party. We are just two individuals, myself and Anees Qaimkhani."

Talking some philosophy, he revealed the flag of his party which turned out to be the Flag of Pakistan. He got emotional talking about how the nation is divided and he doesn't want to break it further, instead he wants to unite it.