Home »Editorials » The party is not over yet?

This newspaper in its editorial titled "'Brand' MQM [MQM-P] unravels further" (February 8, 2018) had concluded its argument by saying the following:

"[T]the unraveling of MQM [MQM-P] was expected, it is highly disappointing nevertheless."

It is quite evident that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) crisis that showed some strong signs of subsiding on Saturday after the "rebellious" Rabita Committee of MQM-P announced that it was withdrawing the controversial letter that it had dispatched to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) through which it had taken away the powers of awarding Senate election tickets from party convener Dr Farooq Sattar. It appeared to be a "wise" move by the Rabita Committee of MQM-P to bring to an end the painful party standoff. Although a beaming Sattar "appreciated" the move following Rabita Committee members' visit to his residence, the crisis was still far from over. If people let bygones be bygones, they agree to forget about arguments and problems that have happened in the past so that they can improve their relationship. In the case of Farooq Sattar-Rabita Committee tiff however their relationship was still marred by deep mistrust. The two developments that took place in the post-Rabita Committee announcement situation took the party crisis to a new low. Firstly, Dr Sattar rejected Rabita Committee's demand that the party convener must postpone to some other date a "general workers' assembly" to which he had invited people from outside the party as well. The other was related to the ECP that accorded sanction to over-riding powers of Rabita Committee in accordance with party's constitution on the occasion of scrutiny of Senate election nomination papers. The second development perhaps provided a beleaguered Rabita Committee with a golden opportunity to take the most "aggressive" step towards Dr Sattar. Not only did it remove him from party's convener-ship, it also appointed another doctor of medicine Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, as new party convener. Although Dr Sattar "dissolved" the Rabita Committee at "party's general workers' assembly" in a stadium situated in his own PIB Colony neighbourhood a few hours later, the post-Altaf Husain party stood fragmented into two groupings - PIB and Bahadurabad factions - headquartered hardly two kilometres from each other in the city of teeming millions.

However, the narratives of the two sides give a broader hint of a possible patch-up even after Sunday's developments mainly because of the fact that the party has been trying to evolve itself into a 'better' political entity in the post-Altaf Husain scenario. There is no doubt about the fact that the then party chief had acted as a glue for divergent voices from within the Muhajir community to insulate it against the forces of gravity emanating from mainstream parties in a country where structures of almost all other parties are strongly characterised by feudalistic attitudes. In addition to Jamaat-e-Islami, Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was perhaps a major exception in this regard, but it appears to be not much different from others after it awarded party ticket for Lodhran by-election to Ali Tareen, the son of Jahangir Tareen, following the latter's disqualification by the apex court. It is however quite interesting to note that some MQM veterans still argue that hope in relation to party can still be restored even when the party is going through the roughest time and that the party cadre has to believe in the "grand design" of things. The events preceding the July general elections will certainly give an answer to a profound question: Can MQM survive, let alone thrive?

Copyright Business Recorder, 2018


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