No attendance: Muttahida's MPC postponed

Decision taken after nearly all major political parties decided not to attend it

KARACHI: [fbvideo link=" https://www.facebook.com/etribune/videos/1973198356030514/"][/fbvideo]

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement - Pakistan's (MQM-Pakistan) multi-party conference (MPC), which was announced in haste on Sunday, got postponed at the eleventh hour after nearly all major political parties declined to attend it.

The decision to postpone the MPC was taken in an emergency meeting of MQM-Pakistan's Coordination Committee presided over by Farooq Sattar at the Marriot hotel where the MPC was to be held.

The parties that refused to attend the conference included Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Pakistan Muslim League - Quaid (PML-Q) and Awami National Party (ANP). However, the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) and Muhajir Qaumi Movement - Haqiqi (MQM-H) among others like Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT), Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) and All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) stuck to their programme to attend it, apparently in a bid to express solidarity with the party that shares similar thoughts and relies on the same vote bank.



"It is incomprehensible why the parties, which had agreed to attend our MPC, changed their minds all of a sudden," Sattar said, while speaking to the media after the announcement of the decision to postpone the meeting. He said that these parties agreed to attend the conference when MQM-Pakistan's delegation invited them over on Monday. "Later in the morning, we came to know through the media that they were not coming and had boycotted our conference."

Visibly displeasured, Sattar came down hard on PPP, PTI, ANP and JI, saying that they supported the politics of disavowed MQM founder Altaf Hussain by boycotting or not attending the conference despite their pledge to the inviting delegations.

MQM-Pakistan had sent delegations spearheaded by Amir Khan, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Khawaja Izharul Hassan and other top tier leaders of the party to invite other political parties at the conference. The move also broke the ice among MQM splinter groups - MQM-Pakistan, PSP and MQM-H - that were one once under the leadership of Altaf Hussain.



Sattar said that now the people of Karachi, other urban and rural parts of Sindh, where Muhajir vote bank resides, will boycott those parties that boycotted the MQM-Pakistan's MPC. "They have rejected our move of last year's August 23 and have endorsed the August 22 speech of Altaf Hussain."

On August 22, 2016, MQM founder delivered an incendiary speech to a crowd assembled outside the Karachi Press Club that triggered violence across the metropolis and led to a crackdown against his party. The next day, MQM's Pakistan leadership spearheaded by Sattar announced parting ways with their chief and offshore leadership.

According to political analyst Mazhar Abbas, the postponement of the conference has also went into the favour of MQM-Pakistan, MQM-H and PSP, as they have got close to each other for their mutual benefit. "The parties who boycotted the conference are nonetheless their natural rivals in Karachi."



Abbas opined that if the MQM-Pakistan had carried on with its programme despite boycott from several major political parties, then it would not have disseminated the intended message. "It would rather have been limited to Karachi which the MQM-Pakistan, MQM-H and PSP perhaps did not want at the moment."

The coalition of MQM splinter groups will actually strengthen the competition against PPP the most and then to PTI, JIT and others, he said, adding that nearly all political parties are vying to fill in the political vacuum in Karachi that took place post-August 22 last year.

Meanwhile, the pro-Altaf Hussain group of the MQM, dubbed as MQM-London, also found an opportunity to uphold its narrative that without their chief, the splinter groups could not achieve anything. "As long as the masses stand with us, even under some extremely hostile conditions, Altaf Hussain and MQM will remain a reality," MQM-London convener Nadeem Nusrat commented.



The London group, having lost the communication and financial supply from the city, has chosen to side with anti-Pakistan lobbyists in a bid to exert international pressure on the country to allow them space to continue with their politics. They have put their weight behind their colleagues in the USA to get access to the Trump administration.

"President of the USA, widely regarded as the leader of the free world said on the eve of the August 22, 2017 what MQM leader Altaf Hussain said on the same day last year," Nusrat said, leaving the meaning up to the people that whether it is a mere coincidence or something more.