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?