Nationalists to take anger against local govt system to the streets

They claim the system is nothing but a pacifier for the returning MQM.

KARACHI:

The Save Sindh Committee, a Sindh nationalist parties alliance, has threatened to camp out in front of the Governor House on November 3 if the Sindh Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) 2001 is allowed to stand.

Nationalist leaders addressed a joint press conference at Hyder Manzil. Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz Chairman Bashir Qureshi, Sindh National Front (SNF) Chairman Mumtaz Bhutto, Sindh United Party (SUP) President Jalal Mehmood Shah, Jeay Sindh Mahaz Chairman Riaz Chandio and barrister Zamir Ghumro expressed their distaste for the system and also warned of a demonstration in front of the Sindh Assembly if a bill was moved there.

The alliance’s convener, Jalal Mehmood Shah, felt that the government was only trying to appease the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for a system which is totally against the people’s wishes.

“The governor has issued the ordinance to reintroduce SLGO 2001 while it expires on November 6,” he said. “But we will not let the government extend the date of ordinance or let them move it in Sindh Assembly.”

They referred to an article of the 1973 Constitution that supported their claim that the federal government has no authority to prepare a draft of a local government system as it has during General (retd) Pervez Mushrraf’s and General Ziaul Haq’s eras.

“It is a purely provincial subject, but both the systems have been imposed by a federal government,” he said, “which is a violation of the constitution.” He felt that the system was that of dictators and was a contradiction to the governments’ claims of wanting to promote provincial autonomy. “We demand that they abandon the systems paving the way (for the) provincial assembly to make such legislation on the issue.”

SNF’s Mumtaz Bhutto went on to say that SLGO 2001 was a ‘gift’ from Mushrraf to MQM to sustain their hegemony over Karachi and Hyderabad.

He went back to the Pakistan People’s Party’s election campaign and reminded the gathering of their pledges to repeal SLGO and reintroduce the commissionerate system. Even when they introduced the system during the assembly’s first session, they left it unresolved under pressure from the MQM, he alleged. He said that president Zardari had compromised just because of 25 seats - those of the MQM in the national assembly - and divided Sindh by introducing two different systems. “One system was introduced for Karachi and Hyderabad and another for the rest of Sindh.”

Bashir Qureshi and Riaz Chandio echoed Mumtaz Bhutto’s sentiments adding that the governor has no right to malign the Sindh Assembly’s legislation and that they would continue to struggle until the government repeals SLGO 2001.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2011.