While the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was rejoicing the prospects of forming local-level governments with the Sindh People’s Local Government Ordinance (SPLGO) 2012, insiders in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) say the MQM leadership had been duped by the top PPP leadership over the issue. Pakistan Today has learnt that the PPP leadership had promulgated the SPLGO 2012 as a time buying tactic, as it had asked smaller nationalist and political parties to keep opposing the ordinance publicly to apparently force the government to call in a review, subsequently leading to amendments in the ordinance per the “aspirations of the people of Sindh” and accommodating views of all party leaders who wanted amendments of their own to the ordinance. This way, the PPP would have appeased the MQM by promulgating an ordinance per their desire, but it would have eventually amended the ordinance in face of strict public opposition and pleased other players as well – a win-win situation for the ruling party.
After hectic consultation between the PPP and the MQM, a breakthrough on the local government system was achieved on September 13 with issuance of the SPLGO. According to reports, the notification had said that of 23 districts in Sindh, five –Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana – were to be given the status of metropolitan corporations where mayors and deputy mayors would be appointed, while magistracy was to be implemented in the remaining 18 districts. The MQM has a strong presence in all five districts planned to be put under LGs.
A well-placed source in the PPP said resignations by ministers of PML-Q, ANP, PML-F and NPP were tendered under an understanding with the Presidency to “show” the MQM leadership the ground realities.
“Since the MQM leadership was asking for the moon vis-à-vis the local government system, it was decided to build political pressure with resignations from other coalition partners who are as important as the MQM for the PPP,” the PPP leader said, requesting anonymity.
The source added that this was the reason that despite resignations by the ministers of ANP, PML-F, PML-Q and other parties, no split had occurred in the coalition governments in any other province or at the Center.
However, MQM leader Raza Haroon seemed quite upbeat about the future of the SPLGO 2012. “We will go by the official statements of the PPP leadership. We are sure that the PPP would stand by its commitment and the Sindh chief minister has also made a public statement in this regard,” he added. On the other hand, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and PPP’s Women Wing President Faryal Talpur on Sunday took the local leadership into confidence over the SPLGO 2012, directing the party’s district chapters to hold seminars and meetings to muster support for the new law. However, their claims were challenged by PPP’s former deputy speaker and MNA Syed Zafar Ali Shah and MNA Nawab Yousaf Talpur. “Not a single party MNA has been taken into confidence nor their reservations over the local government ordinance been removed. This ordinance has already been rejected by the party’s leaders as well as the people of Sindh,” Shah told Pakistan Today. He said the MQM, with its strength in the Sindh and National Assemblies, was trying to bully the PPP over the LG system and it had been making efforts to do so since 2008. “They (MQM) have been making efforts to revive Musharraf’s local bodies system since 2008. Last year, they had also got released an ordinance but the people of Sindh had reacted and refused to make compromise on their rights,” he said. Shah added that initially, no draft of the SPLGO had been made public and later various drafts were released to muddle the matter. He said until now, there was no official draft of the ordinance to debate the matter, let alone removing reservations of the PPP leaders over the ordinance.