Parties seek MQM support

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement said yesterday that the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) have contacted its leaders for the formation of the government at the centre and Sindh province, but the party is keeping all options open.

"Our options are open both at the centre and the province," Farooq Sattar, a leading MQM leader, told Gulf News. "But while making any commitment, we would have four considerations, including the assurance about provincial autonomy."

The October 10 elections have resulted in a hung parliament in Pakistan and hectic negotiations are under way among the leading groups to win maximum number of seats to form a coalition.

The PML-QA and the Pakistan Peoples Party are the two top groups in the run to get the support of maximum numbers of lawmakers.

Sattar said that the MQM wants assurances about political stability and sustained democracy before joining any coalition. "We would also try to win support for our party manifesto and assurance about the sovereignty of the parliament," he said.

He, however, refused to give any details about the MQM negotiations with the PPP and PML-QA leaders, saying that they are in the initial stages.

The MQM, with its 13 National Assembly seats – 12 from Karachi and one Hyderabad – is the fifth largest group in parliament. The party has also emerged as the second largest group in the Sindh Assembly after the PPP.

Sattar also said demanded fresh elections in Karachi under a neutral body, accusing rivals of stealing elections through massive rigging. The October 10 elections were not free, fair and transparent, Sattar told Gulf News.

The MQM candidates were barred from running an election campaign in several Karachi neighbourhoods, while at other places the city government officials blatantly influenced, rigged and manipulated the electoral process, he said.

Karachi has remained a traditional stronghold of the MQM since mid-1980s. The MQM swept every elections in which its candidates participated since 1988.

But October 10 came as a blow for the party as some of its political heavy weights, including Aftab Sheikh in Hyderabad and Nasreen Jalil in Karachi, lost to poorly rated candidates belonging to the main alliance of the Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

The Mohajir Qaumi Movement, a small dissident faction of the MQM, also managed to bag one National and Provincial Assembly seat each in Karachi at the cost of the mainstream organisation.

Sattar said that the party demands fresh polls and recommends that they should be held under a neutral organisation, like the United Nations, to ensure that there is no dispute in the election results.

In the past elections, the MQM used to win 10 or 11 seats out of a total 13 National Assembly seats here. The military-led government has increased the number of parliamentary seats in these elections in an attempt to give better representation to the people in line with the latest census.

Sattar said in several neighbourhoods, including Landhi, where the dissidents won one National and Provincial Assembly each, as well as in Shah Faisal Colony, Malir. Lines Area, the MQM candidates were not even allowed to run their election campaign.

The MQM was barred from hoisting banners, flags and election symbols in these neighbourhoods which comprise almost 33 per cent parts of Karachi, he said.