May 27, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24,1424

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KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement believes that the current impasse over the Legal Framework Order is a tussle for power among the elite and it wants the constitutional debate to go beyond the LFO to encompass a package of reforms to benefit the people.

The MQM’s view was articulated by Dr Farooq Sattar, the party’s deputy convenor, in a Dawn Dialogue interview in Karachi, when he said provisions needed to be introduced in the constitution that enabled the provinces to gain maximum autonomy and led to decentralization of power.

The MQM, Dr Sattar said, wanted the current process to go to its logical conclusion, “that is, decentralized democracy”.

He also said the current tensions between the provincial government in Sindh and the district governments were caused by the duplication inherent in the Local Government Ordinance.

Dr Sattar said the MQM supported cultural pluralism to strengthen nationhood and believed that cultural particularism was detrimental to national integration.

In reply to questions, the MQM leader agreed that there should be a meeting between Mr Altaf Hussain and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto to discuss the current constitutional crisis. The last meeting between the two was held in 1988, and since both the MQM and the PPP had their base in Sindh, it was necessary that the two parties kept in touch, Mr Sattar said.