Pakistan government ally ready to switch allegiance

By Simon Gardner

KARACHI (Reuters) - The allegiance of President Pervez Musharraf's junior coalition ally, the party controlling Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi, is up for grabs again -- for whoever wins Monday's general election.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which mainly represents Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from northern India after partition in 1947, or mohajirs, has shared power with changing governments for much of the past two decades.

It has no plans to stop now, and this time is hoping to tie up with the front-running party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, which is tipped to come out front in the February 18 vote and is now led by her widow Asif Ali Zardari.

"Any political party which claims to be a progressive, moderate and secular political party, I think I'll have no problem going along with that," Muhammad Farooq Sattar, who helps lead MQM as deputy convener, told Reuters in an interview.

"100 percent, we'll offer the coalition to Zardari. And I think Zardari has also made this offer to (MQM leader) Mr. Altaf Hussain," added Sattar, whose party formed a coalition with the previous government of the Pakistan Muslim League.

With a total of 19 seats at the last election in 2002, it's support could help tip the balance in an expected hung parliament for whichever party seeks to form a government. The MQM has been allied to four of Pakistan's past five governments.

SITTING ON FENCE

And if the party of another opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, which completes the three main parties at the upcoming election and with which MQM has shared power during two previous governments, wins?

"A bitter pill can be swallowed. I don't rule it out," Sattar said. "There is no final word in politics." The party fell out with Sharif during his second government from 1997-1999 over policy differences and pulled out of that coalition.

Musharraf himself, now deeply unpopular after he purged the Supreme Court to safeguard his re-election and suspended the constitution, can only bank on MQM for the short-haul.

While MQM, which aspires to be a national rather than a regional party, does not endorse Sharif's calls for Musharraf to quit, Sattar does think he should make a gradual exit.

"If they can work (with him) for two years and then President Musharraf is given an honorable exit, I think that could be the best bet for ... the future of Pakistan," Sattar said.

MQM has a dark legacy of violence by its supporters, particularly in the 1990s. Many Karachi residents and opponents say the party is still involved in bloodletting and blame it for starting violence last May in which 40 people were killed.

Overall leader Hussain has lived in self-exile in London since being accused of kidnap and torture in 1991. He now addresses rallies by party faithful via telephone relayed over loudspeakers in front of a giant portrait.

Sattar says Hussain left Pakistan because of assassination attempts, and says he has spent years rooting out 2,500 violent elements from his party.