PPP’s wrong step in Sindh
On Monday a hurriedly called session of the Sindh Assembly passed the controversial Sindh People’s Local Government Ordinance (SPLGO) with a voice vote within minutes. The bill was neither referred to the select committee nor permission granted for a debate in the house. Request by former allies belonging to the ANP, PML-F, NPP and PML-Likeminded to be allotted seats on the opposition benches was disregarded, leading them to sit on the floor. Some of them tore the copies of the bill into pieces. All shouted slogans against the new law and walked out of the Assembly Hall in protest. The PPP made no attempt to reach a consensus through the customary give and take with minority groups which characterizes present day democracy. It was an exercise in the tyranny of majority.
The PPP has made its bed and will have to lie in it now. A line has been drawn between the urban and the rural population of Sindh which is highly unpopular in the interior of the province and is even opposed by minority communities in the cities, particularly the Pushtuns. The PPP has steamrolled the opposition in spite of strong protests, shutter downs and wheel jam strikes and a campaign by the Sindhi newspapers and electronic media. As the law was being passed, virtually all cities and small towns in Sindh were closed. The protests were peaceful till an activist of a nationalist party was killed in police firing leading the mobs to torch a police station and several vehicles.
President Zardari met MQM chief Altaf Hussain during a stopover in London hours after the SPLGO was voted into law. Electoral alliance between the two parties was high on the agenda of the two leaders. The PPP leadership believes that the Bhutto cult prevailing in Sindh would help it tide over any opposition in the interior of the province and what it will need after the elections is support from other parties to form a coalition government at the center. For this it considers the alliance with the MQM invaluable. The new Local Government system would strengthen the MQM’s position in Karachi and a number of other urban centers. With the gerrymandering of the early 2000s under Gen Musharraf’s watch firmly in place, the MQM can hope to win each of its seats won in 2008 hands down. The MQM is thus in a much better bargaining position than the PPP. It is therefore likely to play its cards closely to its chest, extracting more concessions from the PPP during the remainder of its tenure.
The line which has been drawn between two communities in Sindh by the SPLGO would cause further bitterness and give birth to more conflicts instead of promoting amity in the province. Once the line has been drawn, it would not be easy to undo it. Any government would find it difficult to resist the pressure from a big urban center like Karachi.
