Failure to provide protection to the trading community of Karachi presented as the cause behind Zulfiqar Mirzas departure is a lame excuse, pure and simple. If maintenance of law and order had really been the overriding concern of the PPP-led coalition, Rehman Malik would have been out of the cabinet within six months of being sworn in. What lies behind the decision is the issue of keeping a coalition government intact, which stands to lose majority in case the MQM decides to walk away. Not that anyone could be happy with a pestering ally whose demands have no end but a choice between survival and a humiliating dependence is not an easy one to make. So it has taken the PPP leadership quite a few months to yield ground on Mirza.
Despite his well-deserved reputation for straightforwardness to the extent of being provocatively undiplomatic, Mirza voiced some of the Sindh PPPs most vital concerns, particularly in the urban areas. The control over local bodies, urban constituencies for the provincial and national assembly and a grip on the administration, particularly the police, are some of the battlegrounds between the two parties who despite being part of a coalition for three years were never on the same page on important matters. Mirza had emerged as the PPPs most vocal and effective spokesman. Last month, he received a heros welcome in Sindh Assembly after his skirmish with the MQM over the Peoples Amn Committee. Mirzas withdrawal is clearly a move to pacify the MQM. How long will the PPP continue to yield ground to the ethnic outfit remains to be seen.
But does the PPP have an option? Unless the MQM desists from further arm-twisting its coalition partner, the PPP might be left with no choice but to find a replacement for its troublesome bedfellow. With the PML(N) threatening long marches, the PPP is not sure of outside support. It is thus left with no choice than to induct the PML(Q), presently demoralised and in shambles, into the tottering coalition to maintain its numerical majority. Mathematical riddles can only be resolved mathematically.
