KARACHI:
In the first concrete reconciliatory overture to its former ally the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Tuesday announced that it will withdraw its candidates from contesting elections for two Karachi-centric seats for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.
Addressing a joint press conference along with Governor Sindh Ishratul Ebad Khan, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said the elections were a ‘bone of contention’ between the coalition partners.
“PPP extends it full support to the MQM in Azad Kashmir elections being held in LA-30 and LA-36,” Shah said, adding that he has informed the president of the decision to withdraw from the elections.
The elections, which were earlier postponed, purportedly in view of the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi, will now be held on Wednesday (today).
Following the postponement of the elections, the MQM parted ways with the government and decided to sit on the opposition benches.
MQM’s provincial governor, provincial and federal ministers tendered their resignations but the PPP persuaded its coalition partner to bring the governor back to his post.
The governor, during the press conference, said he had come back to his office on the directives of his leadership, ‘for the betterment of the province.’
PML-N wins LA-17
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’s candidate Yasin Gulshin has won the election for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly seat LA17.
Gulshin secured 16,769 votes followed by Pakistan Peoples Party’s Amjad Yousaf who bagged 14,596 votes. The ruling party, Muslim Conference’s Qayyum Naizi bagged 13,867 votes.
[With additional reporting by Roshan Mughal in Muzafferabad]
Published in The Express Tribune, July 20th, 2011.
COMMENTS (19)
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This circus is a waste of taxpayers money and the bunch of useless MP's on show love spending it. The real corruption is with the political elite on Karachi s land and genreating money... My God!!
Man enough pop, mqm, pml n. Make room for PTI. Time for change.
Er..excuse me? The people of these constituencies voted for their represtatives and now they are being given away. Pakistan truly has a great democracy.
you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours...
One very simple logic.. When PPP and MQM were confronting in politics then dozens of innocent people were being killed. Now both the parties have reached understanding and everything in Karachi is fine now and no killing at all. So it gives the answer to question that only these two parties were responsible for killings. The leaders of both the parties should be punished and these parties should be brought into justice for killing 200 plus innocent lives.
Then why they are playing with innocent lives??? for two seats more than 120 people died.....Why??? Who is playing???
Larry Hardiman very rightly said:
"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'..."
@Omair Shakil: priceless :D:D:D:D:D:D....loved your comment!
Unless the commissionarate system is reversed, the MQM has still come out worse in this. However we don't know all the details because their deals are not made public as they should be in a democracy.
Very much appreciated this step from PPPP. This is something positive.
These 2 seats cost 120 + lives
MQM in Government..... in.. out....in...out....in...out.............................in
@ Qasim, very well said, our politician should be procative, MQM should takecare of the people of Karachi first rather than demand for power.
The PPP /MQM drama is end by re-joining the Governorship post in the interest of natiion (a popluar statment by courrpt leaders) by MQM.. but quesiton is that who is responsible for lost of 200 inocents people and as well lost of Millions rupees due to four day strike by MQM.. is any one has reply on this ?
so basically this is what all the killing was on about? what was that about Pashtun terrorists infiltrating Karachi? and the land grabbers harassing poor Mohajirs? It seems the Pashtun terrorists and land grabbers are pretty contented now that MQM is going to have two seats in the AJK assembly, because they have surely gone silent after the "appeal" from Altaf bhai.
Too little, too late at least for the masses. Heavy price to pay for 2-seats; over 200 lives besides billions in financial losses.
PPP will also pullback on the local bodies system.Certain things are obvious!