KARACHI, 13 December 2002 — The last of the country’s four provincial assemblies was sworn in yesterday, with pro-military parties set to win a majority and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto forced into opposition in her home province of Sindh.
A deal between regional powerhouse, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League means Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party will be in opposition despite winning the largest number of seats in the Sindh Assembly.
It also means that the MQM has added leverage over the ruling party. Besides the Sindh deal, its support for Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali in the National Assembly is crucial to keep him in power.
Many have seen the hand of President Pervez Musharraf behind the efforts to cobble together the Sindh coalition, which keeps Benazir sidelined.
Sindh Assembly members were sworn in at a ceremony yesterday over two months after an Oct. 10 election was held to return Pakistan to civilian rule after three years of the military government headed by Gen. Musharraf.
The delay was caused by parties’ failure to form a majority in the 168-seat assembly.
Nasreen Jalil, a senior leader of the MQM, told Reuters that her group had decided to support the pro-military party’s candidate for the post of chief minister, who will head the provincial government.
“We have withdrawn our candidate for the chief minister’s slot in the wider interest of the country and democracy and we will support the (Muslim League’s) candidate as a coalition partner,” Nasreen said.
Ali Mohammad Maher, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), is expected to be elected as the province’s chief minister under a deal brokered here Wednesday by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali.
A young landlord from upper Sindh, Mehar, has been nominated for the chief ministership by PML(Q) after prolonged negotiations between Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, MQM leaders, Principal Secretary to the President Tariq Aziz, and the number two in the military’s intelligence services, ISI, Maj. Gen. Ihtisham Zameer.
A former chief minister of Sindh, Muzaffar Shah, will be the speaker of the newly elected assembly. The assembly was to have been sworn in late last month but it was delayed when the MQM balked at supporting the PML-Q.
The party agreed Wednesday to join government, giving the coalition enough seats to rule without the largest bloc in the assembly, the PPP.
The PPP said it would still run a candidate against Maher in the assembly vote for chief minister, expected Monday.
PPP sources said the party was in talks with the MMA, which made striking gains nationwide in the October elections both in provincial and the federal legislatures. Benazir’s party had emerged as the biggest with 67 seats in the Sindh Assembly.
The regional MQM party, which dominates urban areas of Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital, won 41 seats, followed by the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League and its allies with 29 seats.
Muslim League sources said they had secured the support of another 15 assembly members to enable the coalition to take a slim majority.
The MQM’s power in the Sindh Assembly gives it a powerful hold over the national government led by the Pakistan Muslim League. Jamali has just a one-vote majority in the assembly and relies on many smaller partners, including the MQM.
Jamali’s Muslim League shares power with a hard-line coalition opposed to the US war on terror in southwestern Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan but has formed its own government in the populous central Punjab province.
The coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, is also in power in the North West Frontier Province, which also borders Afghanistan.
