A worth reading insight by Irfan Hussain in the Dawn about “Unhappy marriage in Sindh”.It also sheds light on MQM’s Power and Federal Government. It also raises the question what MQM has accomplished for Mohajirs by this power? Having a power to shut down Karachi for political purposes will hurt Pakistan’s economy, but it will hurt more Karachi and its residents.( F. Sheikh)
“Another big difference is that Nawaz Sharif does not need any coalition partners, and this will make a bigger difference to the MQM than to the PPP. At the height of the anti-Musharraf agitation in 2007, I asked a senior MQM member why they were sticking with the dictator. His answer was very revealing: “We need to have powerful friends in Islamabad.”
But the PML-N is no friend of the MQM’s. The fraught history of relations between the two parties is full of antagonism and mistrust. In the early days of Musharraf’s government, the MQM was invited to join the cabinet. When I asked Tariq Aziz, Musharraf’s principal civilian advisor, why he had helped induct this party into the government, he was pretty blunt: “We know the MQM has a stranglehold on Karachi, so we would rather have them with us than have them closing down the city every few days.”
This brings us to the source of the MQM’s power: the party that can shut down a city controls it. Despite its steady decline over the last three decades, Karachi remains Pakistan’s jugular vein. Each time the MQM announces one of its frequent days of protest or mourning, billions are lost.
So it’s not the number of seats it wins in the national and provincial assemblies, but the effectiveness of its muscle power to bring Karachi to a standstill that gives the party its clout.
And while the PML-N can distance itself from the MQM, the PPP has come to terms with the reality of the ethnic party. Whatever its nationalist elements might feel, the leadership realises that both Sindhis and Mohajirs have to share the province.
Another factor driving the need to cooperate is the steady influx of the Taliban into Karachi. These religious extremists threaten to displace the ANP as the representatives of the huge Pakhtun community in the metropolis. Thus far, the government has proved ineffective in confronting them, and it appears that only the MQM has the manpower and firepower to take them on.
But as recent events have shown, the MQM is not the monolithic entity it once was. Apart from the recent erosion of its once-solid vote bank, there are signs of cracks in its discipline. Its leader’s bizarre statements from London reveal a person increasingly out of touch with reality.
These last five years while the MQM was a coalition member in both Islamabad and Karachi, it often acted as though it was in the opposition.
Given these factors, the coming years do not hold out much promise for peace and prosperity in Karachi. Nawaz Sharif will be happy to see the MQM and the PPP self-destruct over the next five years.” To read full article click link below;
http://dawn.com/2013/05/25/unhappy-marriage-in-sindh/