SPOTLIGHT: Everything else must wait!: Sindh government busy solving intra-coalition problems - full time!

For the PPP-MQM-ANP allied government in Sindh, governance apparently means paying full-time attention to keeping the alliance intact one way or another. More often than not, the rulers' time is spent in dousing the latest brush fire that keeps the ruling parties' attention riveted to resolving yet another inter-alliance quarrel. Everything else must wait!
After much loss of time and attention devoted to the quarrel that detracts from problems affecting the common man (which means the poor and hungry of this country) a sort of settlement of the latest quarrel is reached. But the interval before the next crisis in the coalition sets in, is brief and the business of governing and of alleviating the misery of the people again gets short shrift. The latest sticking point till a few months backs was about which type of local government Sindh is to have.
At the moment there is total confusion about who is managing the local government functions as a result of which roads are breaking down, sewage overflows at numerous places, no development work worth the name is taking place and in a word every problem is getting worse by the day and every difficulty becoming more difficult to bear by the people. While that famous quarrel between the PPP and MQM is still unresolved and keeps simmering, yet another one has surfaced.
RESOLUTION VERSUS RESOLUTION This new one is related to resolutions moved by the MQM for the creation of new provinces. Towards end December 2011, the party submitted a resolution at the National Assembly Secretariat for making Hazara a separate province and for carving out two provinces out of south Punjab. Then in early January 2012 the party submitted two resolutions in the Senate towards the same end. Now the boundaries of a province in Pakistan cannot be altered without the Assembly of that Province agreeing to the change with a two-thirds majority according to clause (4) of Article 239 of Pakistan's constitution.
This clause stipulates that "A Bill to amend the Constitution which would have the effect of altering the limits of a Province shall not be presented to the President for assent unless it has been passed by the Provincial Assembly of that Province by the votes of not less than two-thirds of its total membership". So there was a move by the MQM to delete the troublesome Clause (4) of the Article 239 so as to make the will of the Provincial Assembly of the affected Province irrelevant to the proposed alteration. The reason behind the move was probably the realisation that it would be often difficult to get the consent of 2/3rd majority of the Assembly of a province for a change in the boundary of the Province it represented.
MISGIVINGS ABOUT MOTIVES There are already strong misgivings especially among Sindhi Nationalists and others that the move to create more provinces as proposed by the MQM would eventually lead to a demand for carving out more provinces out of Sindh. Now the proposal to keep the corresponding Provincial Assembly out of the decision process in this respect by amending the Constitution as proposed by MQM has added much to the misgivings.
A resolution has therefore been moved in the Sindh provincial assembly by MPA Masroor Jatoi of the National People's Party against the MQM's proposal. Assembly members signing it included those belonging to PML-F, PML-Q, PML-Likeminded, ANP and to PPP itself which has landed the latter into difficulty.
THE COMMITTEE PLOY IS ALWAYS HANDY The Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro had referred the resolution to a Committee head by PPP Minister Pir Mazharul Haq "to go into the wording of the resolution and its implications" but probably more out of the need to shelve the controversy for the time being. In a heated debate in the Committee, members belonging to PPP and its allies accused each other of betraying Sindh's interest by delaying the resolution. Strong words like "traitors" were used. The PPP was accused of dragging its feet in moving the resolution. All this led to the Committee Chairman Pir Mazharul Haq resigning from the Chairmanship amidst much acrimony. So here is a new festering sore in the coalition which leaves the government no time to seriously attend to the business of governing, to eliminate targeted killings, to improve education, to reduce corruption, to provide better health services, to provide water for drinking that is drinkable, to reduce corruption in the police force and its own tax collection departments and a hundred such problems which are making miserable the life of the common man.
WAY OUT OF THE QUAGMIRE We have pointed out before that unless the two major parties in coalition in Sindh work with understanding and wisdom the province will continue to suffer from bad governance or lack of it. Both parties should be ready to share power with each other and not divide the Province into watertight rural and urban areas, one ally with total control of one part of the Province while the other ally in the coalition controlling the other part. As long as the PPP and MQM are unwilling to share the power pie with each other in areas under their respective influence, the alliance will have little chance of success. This need not be so. The MQM will be able to make its presence felt in interior Sindh if it agrees to accommodate the PPP in the power structure in the urban areas. It could then enter into electoral alliance with the PPP in areas in interior Sindh where it has a reasonable following. Thus both parties will have a stake in governance of areas not exclusive to just one party. The MQM should realise that its failure to date in making inroads in areas in interior Sindh or in Punjab arises at least partly from its desire not to share power with other parties in areas where it has widespread popular support.
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