Pakistan Peoples Party seeks to form coalition in Sindh

Karachi: Pakistan Peoples Party on Sunday invited its former ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement into a ruling coalition in Sindh province.

The former allies separated before the May 11 elections which witnessed a change of government under a civilian caretaker.

The PPP, after winning a convincing number of seats in the provincial assembly, formed the government without entering into an alliance with any party. However, some indications emerged a few days ago when the ruling party showed its intentions to invite MQM into the ruling alliance.

A PPP delegation led by former federal minister Rehman Malik visited the MQM headquarters to negotiate a new alliance. Pir Mazharul Haq and Makhdoom Jamiluz Zaman were also part of the delegation.

“We have brought a message for MQM to join hands with us to serve Sindh,” Malik told the media after the negotiations were over.

“We cannot afford any confrontation and we are committed to supporting the [federal] government in fighting terrorism,” he said.

In the Sindh province the PPP secured seats from the rural Sindh whereas MQM won in urban centres of the province including Karachi, the financial capital of the country and the only port city.

Both the parties remained coalition partners in the previous provincial and the federal governments but the five-year alliance came to an end after severe differences between the two parties over local or district government issues.

MQM wanted the PPP to hold local government elections in the province so that development works could be done, whereas the PPP had sharp resentment among its ranks over not only the elections but the local body system itself.

Although, the provincial assembly passed a law on the local government, the PPP averted the law when MQM ceased to be its ally.

Sources in both the parties said that the local government system would top the negotiation, whereas MQM would also raise the issue of its missing activists and their extra judicial executions in the hands of law enforcement agencies.

“We have raised the issue of our eight missing workers with the PPP visiting delegation,” Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, the senior MQM leader said.