Pakistan: JUI-F, MQM-P form alliance against PPP in Sindh

ISLAMABAD: The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Thursday announced that they have formed an alliance against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Sindh, Pakistan-based Geo News reported. The two parties made the announcement after a JUI-F delegation, led by Molana Rashid Mehmood Soomro, held a meeting with the MQM-P Rabita Committee at their temporary headquarters in Karachi's Bahadurabad, Geo News reported.

Speaking to reporters, MQM-P senior deputy convener Farooq Sattar said his party, JUI-F, Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) have decided to "free people of Sindh from the clutches of the PPP".

Farooq Sattar said, "We have decided not to let Sindh card work anymore. The JUI-F has the political force in rural Sindh, we will together remind the landlords and feudal of their times and beat the PPP's policy of hatred and nationalism," Geo News reported. He said the new alliance will remove the misconception of the people in rural Sindh that they do not have an alternative leadership.

He said, "The new political alliance is ready to serve the people of Sindh." Meanwhile, Molana Rashid Mehmood Soomro said that the three parties will not fight for any one ethnicity. However, the parties will fight for everyone from Karachi to Kashmore. Soomro urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to address the JUI-F, MQM-P and GDA's reservations on transfers, appointments and delimitation of constituencies, Geo News reported.

He added, "If the reservations are not removed, we will decide the future course of action together." All parties of all hues and makes in the country are gearing up for the upcoming general elections in Pakistan.

However, there has been a controversy surrounding the date for the polls. On September 13, Pakistan President Arif Alvi, in a letter to a letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja, proposed November 6 as the date of national elections, Dawn reported. In the letter, President Alvi said he had dissolved the National Assembly on the Prime Minister’s advice on August 9.

The President’s advice to the CEC came against the backdrop of divided opinions among stakeholders on the time frame for elections. He also cited Article 48(5) of the Constitution, which he said “empowers and mandates” the President ‘to appoint a date not later than 90 days from the date of the dissolution, for the holding of a general election to the Assembly’.

The letter stated, "Hence, “in terms of Article 48(5), the general election to the National Assembly should be held by the 89th day of the date of dissolution of the National Assembly, i.e. Monday, 6th day of November 2023." Alvi, in the letter, recalled that “in an endeavour to fulfil the constitutional obligations”, the chief election commissioner was invited for a meeting to devise the modalities of implementing the constitutional intent and mandate, Dawn reported.

He acknowledged that it was the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) responsibility to abide by all the constitutional and legal steps stipulated under ‘Articles 51, 218, 219, 220 and the Elections Act, 2017’ for organising and conducting free and fair elections.

According to the Dawn report, he advised that the ECP, in “consultation with provincial governments and political parties under the relevant provisions of the Constitution and in view that some of these matters are already sub-judice, may seek guidance from the superior judiciary for the announcement of a single date for the general election to the national and provincial assemblies."