MQM submits motions against Nawaz

Sattar told the media Sharif must come clean as to why he betrayed the nation and chose to leave for Saudi Arabia.


Express August 26, 2010

ISLAMABAD: The explosive  weekend statement by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain encouraging intervention by ‘patriotic’ military generals in order to save Pakistan from ‘corrupt’ politicians continues to shake the country’s chaotic political landscape for a third day running.

The latest among the developments triggered by the ‘controversial’ statement was the submission of two motions by the MQM, including a privilege motion and an adjournment motion, to the National Assembly Secretariat against former premier Nawaz Sharif.

One of the party’s top leaders and its parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar submitted the motions on Wednesday, carrying the signatures of 25 parliamentarians, questioning the democratic credentials of Sharif. The move came a day after Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) filed motions against Altaf’s statement, blaming him for attempting to drag the military into politics.

The MQM’s privilege motion seeks a debate on the agreement between Musharraf and Nawaz under which the Sharif family was sent on a 10-year exile to Saudi Arabia, without the nation being informed of this agreement.

Sattar told the media that Sharif must come clean as to why he betrayed the nation and chose to leave for Saudi Arabia along with his family after the 1999 military coup. He alleged that Sharif denied having an agreement with the then military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, for more than seven years.  “The reality must come before the public,” said Sattar, emphasising that the nation should be informed as to how the penalty of the Sharifs was forgiven. He added that the false statements of the PML-N chief had dishonored the nation and democratic institutions.

In the adjournment motion, the MQM slammed PML-N leadership for its ‘non-democratic behaviour’, accusing it of enjoying good relations with the Army in the past. It said that the Nawaz’s younger brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, as well as another one of the party’s top leaders, Chaudhry Nisar, have had secret meetings with the Chief of Army Staff Pervaiz Ashfaq Kayani but failed to take the nation into confidence on these meetings, which is against the Charter of Democracy (CoD) which states that political leadership cannot hold secret meetings with the military. Furthermore, the motion questioned the PML-N led Punjab government regarding the lack of immediate action over the lynching of two brothers in Sialkot.

In the meantime, a spokesperson for the PML-N blasted the MQM for submitting a privilege motion in favor of a person (Altaf Hussain) who is no more Pakistani citizen. “A person who is in self-imposed exile for past 20 years has no right to interfere into the country’s affairs,” said federal lawmaker Ahsan Iqbal.

Altaf’s statement continued to draw more criticism from various political parties on Wednesday. The latest outburst came from Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, who saw a ‘conspiracy’ and termed the statement ‘meaningful’.

ANP central leader Bashir Bilour on Wednesday said that as MQM was the product of martial law, it was now calling the army generals to interfere in the affairs of a democratically-elected government. He said that at a time when the nation was confronting the worst ever catastrophe in the country’s history, the MQM chief was busy with conspiracies against the democratic system.

The Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) also filed a motion in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assembly against the MQM leader’s remarks.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26th, 2010.

COMMENTS (1)

Dr Habibullah chaudhry | 13 years ago | Reply Great Mr. Farooq Sattar. This is a nice way to defend the folly of Altaf Bhai who made such a statement on a most unopertune moment when your party (MQM)was making headway on the national political scene. You have asked every body to dig into MQM oppertunistic and violant past.
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