ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: Sindh Governor Mohammadmian Soomro resigned on Tuesday to make way for his planned succession by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) nominee Ishratul Ibad as the first political provincial governor after the October elections.

A government statement said Soomro, a former banker who became the second Sindh governor after President Pervez Musharraf took power in the October 1999 coup, had “tendered his resignation to the president citing personal reasons for the decision.”

“Mohammadmian Soomro will cease to hold the office of the governor of Sindh on the swearing-in of the new governor,” it said.

The president is yet to formally announce the appointment of Dr Ibad whom he met on Monday, a day after the MQM nominee returned home after nine years of self-imposed exile in Britain.

Ibad, who was named for Sindh governor by the MQM earlier this month in a political deal with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q), also met Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Tuesday.

Soomro’s expected resignation came only a day after he ordered withdrawal of criminal cases instituted against Ibad as part of a crackdown against the MQM in early 1990.

The country’s other three provinces — Punjab, North West Frontier and Balochistan — continue to have non-political pre- election governors.

The Sindh political deal gave PML-Q nominee Ali Mohammad Mahar the provincial chief ministership, leaving the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) — the largest single party in the provincial assembly — and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal alliance of six Islamic parties in the cold.

DOUBLE-STANDARDS: “This is a clear case of double standards,” a PPP spokesman said on Tuesday while referring to the withdrawal of cases against Ibad while those against PPP self-exiled leader Benazir Bhutto and other party figures were being pursued.