Power-sharing formula: PPP forms team to woo MQM into alliance

Junior partner to be offered six to seven ministries and assurances on the local government system.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has formally invited the Muttahida Qaumi Movement to renew their alliance in Sindh and offered to address its ex-ally’s main sticking point: local government.

A party panel comprising Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Khursheed Shah and Qaim Ali Shah will flesh out a power sharing agreement. Committee members are due to meet representatives of their former ally following President Asif Ali Zardari’ s arrival in Karachi this week.

In the aftermath of the May 11 polls, the PPP suffered a resounding defeat at the centre, but managed to retain its position as the largest party in Sindh by winning a simple majority.

Sources within the PPP told The Express Tribune that a power sharing formula would be finalised and MQM would be given a firm assurance on the local government system. “The PPP will retain around a dozen portfolios but will allocate six to seven ministries to the MQM,” said a senior PPP leader.

Sources said that the MQM is expected to retain ministries that were held by the party during the last term. “Altaf Hussain and President Zardari have talked to each other on the issue and the committee will carve out a power-sharing deal,” said a PPP leader on the condition of anonymity.

Commenting on the prospects of a future alliance, MQM leader Wasim Aftab said, “We have not received any invitation from the PPP and it would be premature to comment whether we are going to join the coalition government.

Aftab, however, said his party would welcome any such overture from the PPP as it believed in dialogue.

PPP Parliamentarians chief Makhdoom Amin Fahim insisted that his party had invited the MQM to join the new provincial set-up. “Both the PPP and the MQM have delivered in the past five years and that is why the people have given them a mandate.”

“We have worked in a friendly environment and will continue to do so for the next five years,” he said adding that the PPP and the MQM would enter into negotiations soon to form the government.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional said that though they had not decided to form an alliance with the PPP, they would prefer to sit on the opposition benches. “Everything is possible in politics, but neither has the PPP invited us nor is the PML-F willing to join the Sindh government,” said Kashif Nizami, the party’s chief organiser.

Sources privy to the development said a meeting was held between PML-F chief Pir Pagara and PTI vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Both the parties have decided to back each other on the opposition benches.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2013.