Four years on, PSP still in search of a decisive victory

Four years have passed since Mustafa Kamal and Anis Kaimkhani, two former leaders of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement, levelled serious allegation against the party supremo Altaf Hussain on their return to Pakistan and later announced their own political group — the Pakistan Sarzameen Party (PSP).

The PSP celebrates March 3 as “Youm-e-Tashakkur”, the party’s foundation day. This year too, they have arranged a ceremony at the Pakistan House, the party’s secretariat, to mark the completion of the party’s four years, today.

In the four years of its existence, the first year proved to be very successful for the PSP as it attracted a number of lawmakers and leaders who were initially given an identity by the MQM. They include Asif Hasnain, Raza Haroon, Dr Sagheer Ahmed, Waseem Aftab, Anees Advocate, Iftikhar Alam, Ishfaq Mangi and Bilquis Mukhtiar. Also, several others who switched sides were those who had served as the MQM’s unit and sector in-charges.

The PSP also took wickets from other political parties, as Syed Hafeezuddin, an MPA of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and Asiya Ishaq of the Pervez Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League jumped ships to join the Mustafa Kamal-led PSP.

However, contrary to the tall claims of Kamal and Kaimkhani that their party will emerge as the largest political party of Karachi, they faced a humiliating defeat in the 2018 General Elections. The party’s performance was too bad in the polls as a majority of its candidates got the fifth or the sixth position in the race. This major upset caused several of the party’s workers to switch loyalties silently and others to become inactive.

Talking to The News, Kaimkhani says the PSP did not perform well in the general polls because the party was in its infancy. “First, our main purpose was not to win the elections. Our objective was to remove fear and bring peace in the city,” Kaimkhani says. In response to a question why some party members are not playing an active role, he says their party is run by leaders and it does not matter if some members are inactive or they choose to leave the PSP. The PSP leader says the history of the party should be seen in two periods.

The first period, according to him, was when Kamal, who was then serving Senator, and Kaimkhani, himself, who had severed on key posts in the MQM, left the MQM in 2013 silently and moved abroad after differing with the party leadership.

“This period is very important in the PSP’s history when we dared to leave the party amid death threats from the party’s militants,” says Kaimkhani.

“On March 3, 2016, Kamal and I challenged [MQM’s founder] Altaf Hussain’s tyranny and people of Sindh’s urban centres supported us at a time when no one could dare to do so,” Kaimkhani says.

Kaimkhani says he is hopeful that the PSP will emerge triumphant in the upcoming general polls. The PSP chief Kamal on Sunday announced starting preparation for the local government polls by holding a women gathering in Nazimabad area, District Central – widely considered as the stronghold of the MQM-Pakistan.

Kaimkhani says the PSP chief is a “tried and tested leader who has delivered in the past as the city mayor. “Karachi’s residents see Kamal as a young and dynamic leader who understands Karachi’s issues in a way that nobody else does,” he asserts.

However, analysts believe that developments after the August 22, 2016 diatribe of the MQM supremo has made the PSP irrelevant after the MQM’s leadership in Pakistan announced dissociation from Hussain, and decided that they will run the party on their own in Pakistan.

But Kaimkhani differs with this analysis. “The PSP is still relevant. When I and Kamal held a press conference against the MQM supremo on March 3, 2016, Dr. Farooq Sattar and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui were with Hussain, labelling us agents of the establishment,” he contends.

The PSP may have their reasons for the optimism but both the factions of the MQM allege that the PSP was being backed by ‘certain quarters’ and has been established with the sole intention of splitting the united MQM’s mandate.

Even, on the ground, a number of MQM activists, who were hiding because of their involvement in subversive activities, have been persuaded by the PSP leaders to move away from their militant past after giving them assurance of the government’s amnesty. Kaimkhani, however, rejects this thesis. “Had we been backed by the establishment, we would not have lost the general elections,” he stresses.

However, the MQM-P leaders say it is needless to point out who is behind the creation of the PSP, implying that the ‘security establishment’ is involved in splitting the MQM. “The MQM-P will sail through the present crisis and persevere its ideology as we believe that such tactics against the party have been used in the past as well”, says a MQM-P’s leader, who requested anonymity, saying he did not want “to give importance to the PSP”.

“Those who are familiar with Karachi’s political history know that the establishment has tried such designs against the MQM in the past. But they are also aware of what happened to such spin-offs,” he says.