PESHAWAR, Feb 11: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and its two new allies — Pakistan People’s Party (Parliamentarians) and the Awami National Party – on Saturday said their alliance would end horse-trading in the province.

Speaking at a joint news conference here at the press club, NWFP senior minister Sirajul Haq, ANP’s leader in the NWFP Assembly Bashir Ahmed Bilour, PPPP parliamentary leader Abdul Akbar Khan, MMA leaders Mufti Kifayatullah and Hakeem Abdul Waheed said they had evolved an understanding to give an end to the menace of horse-trading and politics of money in the NWFP. In the previous Senate elections, they said MPAs had sold themselves and brought a bad name for the province.

“We have gathered on one-point agenda to defeat the politics of money. The involvement of money has made it an expensive business in which a poor, but committed political worker cannot contest for a Senate seat. Our seat adjustment will strengthen this alliance. We hope, we will bag almost nine of the 11 seats”, they said.

Mr Haq said the MMA had laid down traditions of accommodation and reconciliation in the province.

“We believe in unity for the cause. We are open to everybody weather he is with us or not”, he added.

He expressed the hope that both factions of the Pakistan Muslim League and PPP (Sherpao) would help them in their fight against horse-trading.

He said the ANP and PPPP each had demanded one seat, while about rest of the seats a four-member MMA committee would decide at its meeting.

Abdul Akbar Khan, whose candidate Sardar Ali Khan had to face a crushing defeat at the hands of his own (PPPP) MPAs in the last Senate elections, said the alliance would strengthen democratic process in the province. He said Farhatullah Babar was nominee of the party for a seat reserved for technocrats.

Mufti Kifayt claimed that the MMA had sacrificed to get united the democratic forces against the political non-entities. He said their alliance would surely bag nine seats in the next elections. He refused to answer about the wrongdoings in the previous Senate elections.

Hakeem Waheed said he would not predict about numbers, because federal government was backing some spoilers in the game. He was optimistic about the role of his party, but could not make any comment on the role of others.