The BackBencher: Whose assembly is it anyway?

KARACHI:

A text message sent out at 5 am on Friday proclaimed something I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. It was from ex-Peoples Amn Committee leader Zafar Baloch: “We wholeheartedly support the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) protest for establishing peace in Karachi.”

Was the MQM and one of its many nemeses finding common ground? Karachi’s politics is a strange beast that never makes sense.

By 1 pm on Friday, the Sindh Assembly session had already been described with a lexicon of clichés: a “historic day”, a “regretful event” and a “peaceful protest”.

The MQM’s call for a protest – right smack in the off-limits red zone – meant that it would bring a slice of its own brand of politics to the Sindh Assembly’s “august house”, as MPAs so love to linguistically honour it. The musical or Fawara Chowk at the nearby Zainab Market was adorned with posters of MQM chief Altaf Hussain, the poles outside the assembly gate were strung with flags and one enterprising protester even painted a generator in the MQM’s trademark red, green and white colours, while dozens of protesters chanted that they would never, ever, ever, ever stand for extortion.

The day had slim chance of starting on a good note.

A little after midnight, a statement from the MQM’s Coordination Committee came with a warning: “Raabta Committee ne Sindh mai iqtedar par qabiz aur Sindh Assembly ko apni autaq samajhne wale waderon aur jagirdaron se kaha hai ke woh insan ke bache ban jayein warna humein uss autaq ko khali karana aata hai.”

Loosely translated, the statement warns the landlords in the Sindh Assembly to stop considering it their house and their house alone. If they did not clean up their act the MQM knew how to empty the house.

The party made good on its threat. On Friday afternoon, bewildered Pakistan Peoples Party ministers looked on as their ‘coalition partner’ protested angrily. The Sindh Assembly staff mourned the potted plants smashed on the stairs, the broken microphones, and began to tally up the financial damage to submit to acting Speaker Shehla Raza.

Inside the halls of the assembly, MQM MPAs stormed in with placards aloft. “Yeh kis ki assembly he?” chanted one of them. “Bhai ki!” came the answer.

It really was Bhai’s assembly on Friday. Speaker Raza tried to get the MQM to calm down long enough to allow the ritual of fateha prayers proceed, but gave up and tried to get National Peoples Party MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi to begin asking questions for question hour. The MQM members responded by shredding their placards into confetti, blanketing the assembly with their protests.

An amused Jatoi had taken photos on his cell phone as team MQM had walked in. He probably didn’t realise that their fury would turn on him, as he was one of the six MPAs whose microphones were damaged. He was even pushed around as he went to the speaker to tell her why he couldn’t talk.

“I don’t think it was intentional,” he told The Express Tribune later on, referring to being pushed. “It was in the heat of the moment.”

“Can you get my mic fixed?” he asked Raza, as he left her chamber. “I really like that one.”

The assembly’s lights were switched off, ostensibly to clear out the MQM MPAs who remained in the assembly to chant slogans and listen to MQM Deputy Parliamentary Leader Faisal Subzwari’s speech: “Our job is to raise the issues of the people. We demand protection for traders against threats of extortion. The intelligence [agencies] want to listen in on our phones; they can. We were not allowed to raise this issue in the assembly and we will now go and join the protesters outside.”

Referring to the power being cut, one staff member whispered: “How else will they leave?”

Acting Speaker Raza had to issue a ruling which she later said was one that has never been done before, citing that she had to adjourn the session to Monday because of the behaviour of the MQM MPAs.

Raza’s indignation aside, Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan was all conciliatory. “They are our brothers. We’ll talk to them,” he said. Is this a sign that the MQM-loves-PPP, the MQM-loves-PPP-not relationship is on the rocks again?

“They have to stay with us,” Wassan confidently remarked to The Express Tribune¸ making it seem as if the MQM had no choice in the matter. But the Altaf-led party proved today that it can show the PPP up.  But was this protest a warning or a way to demand a pound of flesh from the PPP? “We’ll see whether this was over extortion or... something else,” Wassan said, as he swept out of the assembly to repeat for the benefit of reporters his commitment to clean the city up.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2012.