February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 14: There is a great need for a broad-based national reconciliation as the country cannot afford confrontation anymore. It is high time that all the political and religious parties join hands to steer the country out of this multi-dimensional crisis.

These views were expressed by the deputy convener of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s coordination committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, while speaking at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday.

He, however, said that a clear line had been drawn between the moderate and the extremist forces. He said that the two forces were at war, one wanted militancy and status quo while the other was striving for the establishment of true democracy in a moderate society.

Highlighting salient features of the MQM’s election manifesto, the party leader said that the slogan ‘Empowerment for All’ was the key to all the problems facing the country.

He was of the view that holding of the Feb 18 general elections in a peaceful manner was the most important task that should be accomplished by all the stakeholders including the election commission and political and religious parties, even those which had boycotted the elections.

Dr Sattar expressed the hope that polling in Karachi would remain peaceful on Feb 18.

Dr Sattar spent more than an hour explaining the much-publicised manifesto of his party but was evasive when asked about the role of his party in the May 12, mayhem, opposition to the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and MQM’s future plans to form a coalition government etc.

“We will form a coalition with that party whose agenda is close to our manifesto,” he said.

He recalled that after the 2002 election, the MQM and the PPP held negotiations to share power at the federal and provincial levels but the slain PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, had rejected the power sharing formula when it was presented to her. “We did not want to go along the King’s Party but were left with no option when she (Ms Bhutto) had disapproved the proposal,” he said. Mr Sattar claimed that by 2013 elections the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) would be in a position to nominate its prime minister.