With Sattar back in race, MQM-P hopes to reclaim mandate

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Saturday announced the formal start of their campaign for the July 25 general elections, hoping to reclaim the mandate of Sindh’s urban centres with its “unity and policy of non-confrontation and non-violence”.

Addressing a news conference at the party headquarters in Bahadurabad, MQM-P convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, flanked by senior leadership, including Dr Farooq Sattar, said they have no offices but are still hopeful of winning the elections.

“MQM is an organisation that has made it to success by running its campaign on footpaths and streets,” said Siddiqui, adding that if the party wins, they will not resort to violent tactics to maintain their sway.

In the past the party has been accused of involvement in hooliganism, especially in its former stronghold of Karachi. However, the same behaviour has apparently cost it terribly.

Siddiqui said that those who are thinking the MQM has got weaker and can be replaced will face failure on Election Day. He said that even after “all the conspiracies”, the party is still united and will remain so.

The convener said that for the first time in its history, the party has awarded the most (nine) parliamentary tickets to the families of its “martyrs”, people affiliated with the party who have fallen prey to violence in Sindh. “[Election Day] will show that the mandate of the urban populace is in their own hands.”

He said the MQM-P’s victory will not mean the success of only Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking community that it claims to represent, but of all the people living across the province regardless of their ethnicity or religion. He added that despite “numerous” challenges it faces, the party will progress more than ever. Earlier in the day a delegation comprising MQM-P senior deputy convener Amir Khan and coordination committee member Faisal Subzwari had called on Sattar, the party’s former convener who led the PIB Colony faction after the February 5 split, to persuade him to run in the elections.

On Thursday Sattar had announced that he will not contest the general elections because he was advised so by his colleagues and “loyalist” party workers.

However, Subzwari said on Saturday that the coordination committee and the convener himself had insisted that Sattar should run in the elections, and he eventually agreed.

The MQM-P has fielded Sattar in NA-245 (Jamshed Quarters and Ferozabad) and NA-247 (Clifton, Defence, Saddar and Ranchore Lines).

Flanked by an MQM-P delegation outside his residence in PIB Colony, Sattar told the media on Saturday that the party needs him in the polls as their leading representative.

He said he had requested Siddiqui and Khan that he should be assisting them in running the electoral campaign for the party rather than contesting the polls, because they had just reunited after five months. “I wanted to dispel the impression that I reconciled merely for my ticket.”

Addressing the media after him, Subzwari said August 22, 2016, when the party distanced itself from its chief Altaf Hussain, and February 5, 2018, when the MQM-P split into the Bahadurabad and PIB Colony factions, were no less than Chand Raats (festive nights) for their opponents, because they thought of benefitting from these events.

When asked why the MQM-P has fielded a relatively weaker candidate, Osama Qadri, against Pak Sarzameen Party Chairman Mustafa Kamal in NA-253 (New Karachi), Khan said their nomination is in line with their rival’s stature.