Opposition rising: PML-N, MQM meet amidst talk of alliance

Shahbaz, Dar meet Farooq Sattar; Gilani meets PML-Q leaders to formulate counter-strategy.

Political manoeuvres to form a ‘grand’, anti-government opposition alliance intensified on Monday with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) covering ‘significant ground’ to shape up their cooperation and key power players in the regime sharpening a counter strategy.

In the newest development, top leaders from the PML-N and the MQM met in London on the margins of a Commonwealth get-together of parliamentarians and insiders termed the contact as a first step towards the formation of the proposed alliance.

The London meeting between Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar was a day after both parties said they could cast away their political differences to ‘save Pakistan’.

While the MQM leaders back home made a conscious attempt to downplay the meeting by calling it an accidental encounter, PML-N officials said it was a result of “behind the scenes” contact between the two key opposition parties that have been hostile to each other in the recent past.

A MQM spokesperson said the meeting was not a formal interaction and both just talked to each over dinner. “There was nothing significant or political about it,” said Wasay Jaleel. PML-N leaders on the other hand, however, appeared upbeat about the meeting, and said it was the first high-level contact that would change the course of the country’s political scene.

Party members told The Express Tribune said there was a possibility of a meeting between Shahbaz, who is in London on a five-day tour, and MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who has been living in the city on a self-imposed exile for nearly two decades now.

“You will see more such contacts in coming days and weeks… it was very important,” said a PML-N leader on condition of anonymity. “It is possible,” he briskly added when asked whether there were chances of a meeting between Shahbaz and Altaf.

Meanwhile, another PML-N leader Senator Ishaq Dar told journalists at the Lahore airport that backdoor channels were working overtime to give the proposed opposition alliance a final shape and things would be clear in some days.

When asked, Dar said his party was in touch with all potential allies including the MQM, though he described his meeting with MQM leader Farooq Sattar as “accidental”.

“I met Farooq Sattar in Dubai accidentally. The meeting was an informal contact as it was not scheduled and had no agenda,” said Dar.

He did not explain how such interactions were being made and why PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was out of the picture and maintaining a low profile as the negotiations play out.

PPP counter-strategy

Separately in Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani met Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Elahi of the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid.

Though very little details of the meeting emerged, sources said it was a brainstorming session on how to foil Sharif’s bid to form a grand opposition alliance. (With additional reporting by Muhammad Rizwan in Lahore)

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2011.