HYDERABAD, May 26: The Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP) on Sunday announced parting ways with the Sindh Progressive Nationalist Alliance (SPNA) and the 10-party alliance.
STP chairman Dr Qadir Magsi expressing his utter disgust over performance of the two alliances in general elections in Sindh, told Dawn that the STP has suffered the most on account of being one of the alliance’s entities given the fact that the STP is striving for breaking the status quo while other component parties are status quo-friendly.
“We admit our mistake. We wasted our time in such kind of [alliance] politics,” Dr Magsi said after presiding over his party’s central committee’s meeting on Sunday evening. The STP has issued a formal statement announcing that it is calling it a day as far as working with the two alliances — SPNA and 10-party alliance — are concerned.
STP’s decision, which perhaps marks formal demise of SPNA that had otherwise been dormant for a long time, would be communicated to alliance leaders, he added.
“It [10-party alliance] was an accidental grouping of different parties that came on the heels of a controversial local government law introduced by the outgoing PPP-led coalition government in Sindh in 2012,” he said.
He appeared disappointed over how 10-party alliance fared in May 11 poll in Sindh without proper strategy with the result that it simply did not deliver. He said the politics of alliance always harmed Sindh and that’s why an alternate to feudal leadership could not emerge.
Historically, SPNA was formed in March 2010 with primary objective of contesting elections as a unified force in Sindh against the PPP. It had made a commitment to work for sovereignty of Sindh and safeguarding rights of Sindhis..
Its main component parties were STP, Qaumi Awami Tehrik of Ayaz Latif Palijo, Sindh United Party of Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah and Save Sindh Movement (SSM) of Shah Mohammad Shah. But SSM later merged itself into SUP.
SPNA never got itself registered as a formal electoral alliance. Sindh National Front (which has been merged into the PML-N) had dissociated itself in the beginning.