Pak Sarzameen Partycelebrates ‘Yaum-e-Tashakkur’ on completing three years

Three years have passed since Mustafa Kamal and Anis Qaimkhani, who used to be key leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), levelled serious allegations against party chief Altaf Hussain on their return to Pakistan and later announced their Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP).

On Sunday the PSP observed March 3 as ‘Yaum-e-Tashakkur’ by arranging a ceremony at the Pakistan House, the party’s headquarters, to celebrate the completion of the party’s three years.

The PSP’s chief Kamal and president Qaimkhani, and members of the central executive committee and the national council of the party spoke to the gathering. A large number of party workers attended the ceremony.

“I thank all the people who supported us with goodwill, even those who are not with us openly,” said Kamal. Accusing Hussain of manipulating Mohajirs into hating other ethnicities while posing as champions of the community’s cause, the PSP chief said, “We will have to bury the MQM and its politics to completely rid ourselves of these problems.”

Disapproving the MQM’s politics, the former Karachi mayor said that after winning several elections in its 35-year politics and sacrificing thousands of people, today a party claiming to be a representative party of Mohajirs decries that it does not even have the power to clean the gutters.

“I invite the MQM’s friends to sit and review its 35-year politics in the name of Mohajirs, whether it was in favour of the community or not.”

He said that because of the PSP’s arrival in Karachi’s politics, the city has now become one of the safest cities of the world, and now matches of the Pakistan Super League are being conducting here.

Performance review

During the past three years the PSP has succeeded in attracting a number of lawmakers and members who were initially given an identity by the MQM, as well as in conducting public rallies and organising the party’s structures across the city.

The split and a power struggle within the MQM-Pakistan also gave an opportunity to the PSP to gain ground in Karachi’s Mohajir-dominated neighbourhoods, but unfortunately, it could not exploit it because of several reasons.

The PSP’s forming was seen by its critics as an establishment-sponsored move aimed at breaking the MQM and imposing the minus-Altaf formula. However, the PSP, especially Kamal, denies it. The ex-mayor says that people have joined the PSP because of his philosophy.

Although PSP leaders, since the party’s inception, have insisted that they did not form the party to usurp anyone’s power, political analysts believe that the party’s main objective is to snatch the MQM’s control over its primary turf in Karachi, exploiting the pressure the party has been facing because of the ongoing crackdown.

Tausif Ahmed Khan, one of those analysts, said that in the past three years the PSP could not succeed in dispelling the perception that it had been formed by the establishment. “I believe that because of the forming of the MQM-P after its disassociation with Altaf Hussain after his August 2016 speech, the PSP has become irrelevant in electoral politics,” Khan told The News.

But, he added, the party would act as a vibrant pressure political group in the city. The situation on the ground, however, is different. A number of MQM cadres, who were hiding because of their involvement in subversive activities, have been persuaded by PSP leaders to move away from their militant past after giving them assurance of the government’s amnesty. And it worked well.

“Despite the fact that the PSP did not win a single seat and secured very few votes in the 2018 general elections,” said Shabbir Ahmed, a political activist in Landhi, “the party has active organisational structures in every Mohajir neighbourhood. The PSP has been and it still is operating as an active Mohajir political party.”