THE MQM is a party packed with as many enigmatic stances as it is with street power. Last week, Altaf Hussain twice raised the spectre of a separate province for the ‘Urdu-speaking’ Sindhis while addressing campaign rallies for local polls. The statement sent shockwaves throughout the country.

While the TTP polarises political opinion in the country and divides it into vertical slices, it is only in the MQM’s gift to bring out cries of horror from Jamaat-i-Islami’s Munawar Hasan, PML-N’s Hamza Shahbaz, PTI’s Shireen Mazari and PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Altaf Hussain’s heir apparent, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, explained his leader’s stance while talking to the media: “The Quaid-i-Tehreek wasn’t talking of a division of Sindh, only of resources. We believe that the urban-rural split in Sindh is now 60-40. He was rather generously offering a 50-50 split of resources.”

Siddiqui’s prolonged absence in the US ended recently when he was reportedly brought in to quell dissent in the party’s set-up in Karachi which led to the dissolution of the Rabita committee. A diehard Hussain loyalist, he is a former president of the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation.

Apparently, as part of the same move, party stalwart and erstwhile Nine Zero linchpin Nadeem Nusrat was also asked to end his (fairly lengthy) US sojourn to assist the leader in London. Along with some trusted partymen who were for years in self-exile in South Africa, Nusrat and Siddiqui are slowly taking charge.

This move was also necessitated by the MQM leader’s assessment that the legal net may be closing in on him in a number of cases in the UK and, if what he calls a conspiracy against him succeeds, he may be out of circulation for some time.

Not all among the new crop of leaders at the party headquarters in Karachi, some of whom were toddlers when Hussain went into exile, could be trusted if the leader was to possibly face curtailment of his freedom to address his supporters from London.In fact, last week, usually well-informed TV host Najam Sethi said on air: “Expect a big bang in London soon as the Imran Farooq murder investigation may be nearing its conclusion. I won’t commit to exactly when but soon.” Other cases may also be reaching fruition.

The MQM leader is battling on many fronts, including ill health. The party has always rallied its mass support using all possible means whenever it has felt threatened, possibly because it realises that, although its zealous supporters may be somewhat fewer than the phenomenal multitudes they represented previously, they remain its safest bet.

While friction with the PPP over local bodies may appear to be the main trigger this time round, it isn’t. The timing of Hussain’s outbursts coincided with what could only be described as a victory for the party: the high court verdict endorsing its view on elements of the Sindh PPP government’s local government law.

But erstwhile ally retired Gen Pervez Musharraf’s trial could certainly have been one. Ever since emerging on the political scene in the 1980s, the MQM has always enjoyed a unique privilege. It has shared the fruits of being in power, yet retained opposition rhetoric and played the victim.

It seems to believe that playing the victim cements its support base. The only exception was when Gen Musharraf gave it unprecedented resources and complete leeway in its majority urban centres. It was placed firmly in the saddle and made no bones about it.

The general’s trial has fuelled the party’s persecution perception; as one insider says: “Do you seriously believe a former army chief would have been humiliated like this if he belonged to the big province and wasn’t Urdu-speaking?”

Perhaps, equally dire is the realisation that the general’s, and by implication the MQM’s foreign (read Western), friends aren’t so influential as to get him off the hook. Out of power at home and with few friends who matter abroad would make it feel unloved and nervous.

Finally, it will be instructive to go through the MQM’s record of rhetoric and statements in the run-up to any election. It seems to up the ante in such periods to galvanise the voter and then reverts to a business-as-usual attitude post-polls.On this occasion, perhaps normality is being embraced even earlier. An MQM delegation led by Waseem Akhtar has already met Sindhi nationalist leader Ayaz Latif Palejo to assure him that the party did not want the division of the ‘mother’, Sindh, in two.