MQM-PSP merger

No to a shotgun marriage

It had appeared  on Wednesday  as if  the systematic dismantling of the MQM that began in 2013 under the Pakistan Rangers Sindh was going into  consolidation mode when  MQM-P and PSP joined hands to contest the general elections under “one manifesto, one symbol and one party.”

What happened in fact was that Dr Farooq Sattar brokered the agreement with PSP without taking major leaders of his party into confidence. How this came to happen remains a mystery. It was  clear however that the alliance more or less sealed the fate of the powerful behemoth that was the MQM under its supremo Altaf Hussain.

Mustafa Kamal, the estranged onetime prominent member of the MQM, returned to the political scene with all guns blazing against his former leader Altaf Hussain last year under a new banner of the PSP. The MQM had already been cut down to size as its violent elements had been effectively reigned in, arrested or eliminated.

PSP’s goal to break the MQM-P by forcing mass defections from the party could not be fully achieved as it was unable to make any serious dent in that respect. Apart from worrying about possible defections the MQM-P has had to deal with frequent arrests of their  members by the Sindh Rangers.

It was clear that only the PSP was going to  gain from this alliance while the MQM-P  clearly stood  to lose from the proposed alliance, signs of which soon became apparent.  Party MNA Syed Ali Raza Abidi immediately resigned both from the NA and MQM-P, Kishwar Zehra  Qaimkhani walked-out from the joint press conference and Deputy Convener Amir Khan stated that Dr Sattar had transgressed the mandate given to him.

The move towards the merger suffered a fatal blow on Thursday when the Rabita  Committee (RC)of MQM-P announced that  the party would  stick to its name, electoral symbol and manifesto. The Wednesday agreement according to the RC  was no more than an electoral alliance between two parties for  2018 polls. The announcement dealt a blow to Farooq Sattar’s credibility and he proceeded to announce his resignation from the party and retirement from politics as a whole, a decision he later reversed the same night. The RC insists that the MQM would continue to work under his leadership.