The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Saturday announced a seat adjustment formula for Senate elections.
Members of both parties, including MQM leader Syed Sardar Ahmed met Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah in Karachi to discuss the Senate elections. The political situation in Sindh was also discussed during the meeting.
According to sources, members of both parties decided to work jointly with regard to the upcoming Senate elections.
Addressing a press conference following the meeting, PPP Senator Rehman Malik said that a first step has been taken in the new working relationship between PPP and MQM. He added that candidates from both parties would be elected unopposed.
Malik said that under the seat adjustment formula, MQM’s Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif will replace him (Rehman Malik) on the technocrat seat while MQM’s Abdul Qadir Khanzada has withdrawn in favour of PPP’s Farooq Naik.
The PPP senator said that Syed Zafar Ali Shah, the lone candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) from Sindh, has taken back his nomination papers.
Malik stressed upon the need to end horse-trading culture in the country. “It is responsibility of all the political parties to stop horse-trading,” he said. There should also be a timeframe for the party leaders who want to quit their respective parties ahead of elections, Malik suggested.
On the occasion, MQM leader Sardar Ahmed said that both the parties have resolved a specific issue, and expressed the hope that all the issues between both parties would also be settled in future amicably.
Earlier on February 28, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) formed an alliance in Balochistan to contest the upper house of Parliament polls, due on March 5.
