LAHORE, March 24: The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) says the Muttahida Qaumi Movement will have to satisfy the nation on certain issues before it is included in the government and urges the Pakistan People’s Party to take onboard coalition partners before taking important decisions.
PML-N secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has said the party as well as the nation has reservations about the past conduct of the MQM and the latter will have to allay these concerns before joining the ruling People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA). He was talking to Dawn here on Monday.
Asked to explain the reservations the PML-N had against the MQM, he said it would have to absolve itself, if possible, of incidents like the murder of Hakeem Saeed and May 12, 2007, carnage in Karachi in which over 40 people were gunned down during the visit of the then suspended Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to the city.
Jhagra recalled that his party was the first to take along regional parties, including the MQM, into the mainstream politics in the 1990s and would welcome their role in future too provided they satisfied the nation about their past.
About solo flight of the PPP in talks with the MQM, the PML-N leader said in future the PPP would have to take its allies into confidence before taking important decisions for smooth running of the coalition government.
He said the PML-N was ready to offer any sacrifice in the larger interest of the country and democracy and expected that the PPP leadership would share the spirit shown by Mian Nawaz Sharif for the continuity of democratic system.
He said he was not in complete knowledge of what had transpired between the PPP and the MQM as different versions were being given by the party on the issue. Most of the PPP leaders, he said, were saying that the political cooperation with the MQM would be restricted to Sindh province and it would not be offered ministries in the federal government.
Jhagra said both the PML-N and the PPP knew that they would be the real political rivals and thus were taking positions accordingly. But, he hastened to add that it was the beauty of democracy that both the future rivals were sitting together in a coalition government to ensure continuity of the system.
He recalled that the democratic forces in the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD), through the Charter of Democracy, had pledged to respect each other's mandate.
Asked if accepting support of the PML-Q forward bloc by the PML-N would be tantamount to violation of the pledge, he argued that the Q League had never been a political party. "It was a group of opportunists formed by the establishment. I have always been saying that the group will dissolve the day Gen Musharraf would doff his uniform."
He admitted that the step was causing unrest among the workers who had been suffering at the hands of the PML-Q during the past five years and that the leadership would have to be alive to their sentiments.
However, he said the workers would also have to accept decisions of the party leadership being taken under certain conditions.
He said only those turncoats were being accepted into the party folds who had to depart under some compulsions but did not use foul language against the PML-N leadership or who were newcomers in the politics and somehow got elected on PML-Q ticket
