LAHORE, Sept 6: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has shown certain reservations on the ‘political settlement’ between President Pervez Musharraf and PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto but says “they (the reservations) are not very serious and may be redressed by the government to our satisfaction”.

The reservation were aired by federal minister Shamim Siddiqui who represented the party at a meeting that was chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad on Wednesday and in which the PM divulged certain details of the dialogue between the team of President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto in Dubai the other day.

Mr Siddiqui was tight-lipped on what he had said at the meeting, but the party spokesperson Syed Haider Abbas Razvi told Dawn from Karachi on Thursday that the major objection raised by the party related to the demand of Ms Bhutto seeking dissolution of local governments before the elections.

He said that the functioning of local councils had nothing to do with parliamentary elections and in no country local governments were dissolved to facilitate general elections.

“This is not a genuine demand as this will mean to suspend development projects till the completion of the electoral process; we cannot allow the people to suffer”.

Asked about Ms Bhutto’s fear that the local government’s funds and influence might be used in the election to the benefit of the ruling party candidates, Mr Razvi said such an apprehension must be taken care of through other administrative checks and balances which should be in place before the elections.

The MQM, according to him, also told the prime minister that if the government was thinking in terms of withdrawing cases against certain political leadership, the same concession should apply on workers.

He said that political workers were always made to face police repression for the acts of their leaders who escaped legal action. As for corruption cases, the MQM had impressed upon the government not to withdraw them as it was the job of the courts to adjudicate allegations against them on a case to case basis.

Mr Razvi, in reply to a question, said that the MQM had taken no position on the dispute of the uniform of President Musharraf because he was yet to take his party into confidence on this issue.

“The Constitution provides for a solution to the dispute and we think that all concerned should work within these (constitutional) confines”.

However, the MQM would take a firm view on the issue when the president would take his party into confidence.

As for the demand for the repeal of Article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution (the powers of the president to dissolve the National Assembly), the MQM spokesperson said his party was not averse to such a suggestion. Yet, it also thought that there must be some constitutional mechanism to stop the imposition of martial law. He pleaded that the ‘best way’ would be to link the president’s power for the dissolution of the National Assembly with the approval of a joint sitting of the parliament.

The MQM spokesperson said that his party was not opposed to the government seeking political cooperation from the PPP. “We had rather welcomed the move when it was just in the initial stage”, he said and added that the party also wanted such an arrangement with Nawaz Sharif. “We welcome the two exiled leaders returning home because this will strengthen the much-needed national reconciliation”, he added.

AMANULLAH KHAN: Meanwhile, Punjab MQM organising committee chief Amanullah Khan has talked of certain ‘hindrances’ being created in the party’s expansion in the province.