September 07, 2008	Sunday	Ramazan 06, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 6: Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmakers may have voted for Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential polls held on Saturday, but serious misgivings characterise the relations between the two parties that opted to bury the hatchet shortly after the February general elections.

Background interviews with many politicians suggest that only a handful of MQM leaders are exactly aware of the reason why the party announced support for Mr Zardari’s candidature in spite of the fact that the political alliance between the two parties has been less than happy.

Hours after the resignation of former president Pervez Musharraf, the MQM emerged as a staunch supporter of Mr Zardari and lost no time in nominating him for the office of president in an extraordinary political summersault that took other coalition partners by surprise.

Almost every leader that this reporter spoke to said that while Mr Zardari and Altaf Hussain may have developed new-found affection for each other, the relationship between the provincial leaderships of the two parties is, to put it mildly, tumultuous.

“Some media reports suggested that the PPP will give the MQM some six ministries in the federal cabinet. But, to my knowledge, nothing is finalised and the PPP has not yet consulted us on this issue,” said a senior leader of the MQM asking not to be named. He insisted that the MQM had unconditionally supported Mr Zardari.

Sources said that the fact that numerically the PPP did not need the MQM in the Sindh Assembly to maintain a government fuelled speculation that sooner or later they would part ways, with the PPP either wrapping up the local government system or significantly curtailing the powers of nazims. They feared that Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad might also get the axe.

They said the MQM was not only unhappy about receiving relatively less important portfolios in the provincial cabinet and curtailment of city government funds, it also had reservations about reported support of some PPP leaders for the MQM-Haqiqi. “We believed that Mr Zardari was unaware of many things going on at the provincial level,” said another MQM leader. “He is now president of Pakistan and the question that haunts us is how he would pay attention towards such issues now.”

The sources added that it was a measure of trust deficit that characterised the relations between the provincial leaderships of the two parties that shortly before the presidential election, Mr Zardari sent to Karachi his trusted aide, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik, who assured MQM ministers that there would be no interference in their departments.

They said that another person through whom Mr Zardari and Mr Hussain communicate with each other was National Reconstruction Bureau chairman Dr Asim Hussain.

The sources said that at Mr Malik’s meeting with PPP and MQM leaders, he was informed of funds for the Karachi and Hyderabad local governments. One of the participants belonging to the PPP said that funds for all local governments in Sindh had been slashed to about 30 per cent due to a financial crunch. Hyderabad Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil contradicted the claim and presented a list showing more allocation of funds for Khairpur and Larkana districts.

The issue of the administrative control of the Karachi Building Control Authority, the threat of Talibanisation and grabbing of government and private lands by certain influential persons also came under discussion but no final decision was taken.

“Mr Malik made no promises but we believe that he will convey our concerns to Mr Zardari,” said a source.