THE internal tumult that the MQM has been experiencing ever since its supremo, Altaf Hussain, made an incendiary speech last month has been manifesting itself publicly in strange ways. The latest episode involves an audio clip, attributed to the London-based leader, floating around cyberspace in which Mr Hussain has asked the MQM’s lawmakers sitting in the country’s legislatures to tender mass resignations and get a fresh mandate. While, once upon a time, one call from the ‘Quaid-i-Tehreek’ would have energised his zealous cadres and unleashed a wave of fear and uncertainty across Karachi, today things are a little more subdued. At most, the audio clip has sparked a war of words between the London- and Karachi-based factions, with Twitter being the primary battleground, while some of the party’s lawmakers have questioned the authenticity of the recording. Regardless of the logic behind the call for resignations, the clip has exposed apparently deep fissures within the Muttahida. Clearly, the loyalist faction in London is toeing a hard line and promising to stick by the ‘Quaid’ come hell or high water. The Farooq Sattar-led faction in Pakistan is of course playing a more pragmatic hand, knowing well that defending Altaf Hussain’s outbursts will only add to their troubles with the establishment, and alienate the mainstream voter. For example, the unprecedented resolution passed by the Sindh Assembly the other day — fully supported by the MQM’s lawmakers — calling for Mr Hussain to be tried for treason, is a clear sign that the local leadership considers the man in London to be a liability.
As for the content of Mr Hussain’s latest appeal, the Muttahida’s lawmakers have done the right thing by ignoring calls for mass resignations. There is no need to create a vacuum and add to uncertainty and instability, which would be the natural outcome were the lawmakers to quit the legislatures. For the MQM — after the dust settles where its internal power struggles are concerned — the party must look to the 2018 elections and work towards convincing its constituents that rather than being a personality cult, it is a genuine political party with urban Sindh voters’ best interests at heart. Meanwhile, the authorities should also consider releasing Karachi’s imprisoned mayor, the MQM’s Waseem Akhtar, as unless he is convicted of the charges he faces, it makes little sense for the city’s highest elected official to be kept behind bars.
Published in Dawn September 25th, 2016