KARACHI, March 23: The Pakistan People’s Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement are likely to hold another round of talks next week to discuss a power-sharing formula in Sindh.
PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari won MQM’s support after holding talks with the party’s chief Altaf Hussain over phone that resulted in withdrawal of MQM’s candidate for the post of prime minister.
While the MQM claimed that it was supporting the PPP nominee ‘unconditionally’, sources told Dawn that Mr Zardari had told Mr Hussain that while he was ready to share power with the MQM in Sindh, he would need some time for a power-sharing accord at the centre.
The sources said that Mr Zardari had informed Mr Hussain about Pakistan Muslim League-N’s reservations over accepting MQM as a coalition partner at the federal level but said that for the sake of democracy he would try to make Nawaz Sharif realise the need of bringing together all moderate democratic forces including the MQM.
A meeting of the MQM’s coordination committee, held simultaneously in Karachi and London on Friday, agreed that the party should support the PPP but some members of the committee opposed the idea of the party’s joining the government in Sindh or at the centre, the sources said.
They said that the PPP’s parliamentary leader-designate in the Sindh assembly, Pir Mazharul Haq, had contacted the MQM’s designated parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed on phone and expressed his desire for a meeting.
An MQM leader told Dawn that the party wanted 40 per cent representation in the Sindh cabinet and the post of deputy speaker.
He said the party was not interested in the portfolios of finance and home affairs because it believed that being the majority party it was the right of the PPP to hold the two sensitive departments.
He said that the issue of nominating governor rested with the president and the MQM did not want to make it an issue.
Meanwhile, MQM’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar said that the PPP had expressed its desire to include the MQM in the new ruling coalition but the party had not been formally invited to join the government.
“We have announced our unconditional support for the PPP candidate now the ball is in their [PPP] court,” he told newsmen at the Karachi airport on Sunday.
