Pakistan turns a page

Tariq A. Al-Maeena

HISTORY has been made this month in this much maligned country. A democratic process of elections went through without the usual rash of violence or indiscriminate bombings that would have turned the whole thing into a farce. Instead, the Pakistanis took to the polls and decided upon a leader.

Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was the unquestionable winner in a hard fought elections that saw the charismatic Imran Khan’s party, the PTI establish a firm foothold in Pakistani politics. There is a confidence in the air. The PML-N party now has five years to prove that the years their leader Mr. Sharif spent in exile were not in vain. There is another wave of optimism as the tsunami led voters of Khan managed significant victories in the Northern Province and will form the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtun.

There is much work ahead for both parties. The country has many domestic heights to surmount, let alone the foreign issues it faces in its war against terrorism. But such challenges are not impossible if all parties accept the will of the majority and go about making their country better.

There is evil lurking in the horizon though. The MQM through its Machiavellian party leader Altaf Hussain is threatening to dismember the province of Sindh form the country. Saeed Qureshi, a former diplomat and respected journalist charges that “Altaf Hussain the fiery and unbridled chief of MQM has enslaved or indoctrinated his Mohajir community, mostly settled in Karachi city after their migration from India in 1947. By his rigid and merciless authoritarianism, instead of integrating, he has isolated his community from the mainstream populace of Pakistan. MQM is basically a movement for the sake of Mohajirs as an ethnic entity and not for the Pakistani nation.”

Qureshi also contends that “since its formation in 1984 as Mohajir Qaumi Movement and later renamed as Muttahida Qaumi Movement in 1997, the imprint of MQM in the minds of the people is that of a kind of mafia or an entity of roughnecks or extortionists. It is believed that the special death and terror squads within MQM kill, kidnap and torture rivals including the critics from within the MQM fold.”

He adds, “There have been also a prevailing impression that has gained ground, that the extortions or the obnoxious “parchi system” was first started by MQM to raise funds for the organization to become financially robust for carrying out its political and apolitical activities.

Undoubtedly Altaf Hussain has proven to be a great and unassailable master and unbending and strict lord of his party.”

“Several pioneering cohorts and companions are alleged to have lost their lives in all these years ostensibly due to their opposition of the ruthless leader with symptoms of indiscretion. Their names are in public knowledge.The MQM captures most seats in Karachi both for the National Assembly and for the Sindh provincial assembly. These seats in the distant past used to be shared by Jamaat-i-Islami and some other political factions. But for many years now these are exclusively bagged by MQM. The MQM’s political behavior for all these years has been to browbeat and flex its muscles whenever its hegemony was challenged by other groups within the context of Karachi and broadly in Sindh.”

With the recent elections, most of the wind has come out of his sails as other parties made great inroads into the province he has been dominating with near like terrorism. The Pakistani voters have made up their minds and Hussain and his gang of rogues could be marginalized over the coming term. But such men do not go down quietly. And that is why he has now tried to rouse the call for separating the province from the country, and establish his own fiefdom in the process. He has come to be known as “a dreaded and pitiless czar and a violent baron.”

Imran Khan has accused the MQM warlords of killing one of his senior staff a week after a general election. He charged, “I hold (MQM leader) Altaf Hussain directly responsible for the murder as he openly threatened PTI workers and leaders through public broadcasts. I also hold the British government responsible as I had warned them about British citizen Altaf Hussain after his open threats.”

Personalities such as Altaf Hussain do not bode well for the future cohesion of Pakistan. In that most Pakistanis took to the polls in an orderly manner and exercised their choices this month, they should also continue to safeguard their country against despots who think nothing of breaking down their country for personal pursuits. It is now time for Pakistanis to make that choice.