Khalid Maqbool’s ‘election’ as MQM-P chairman ignites controversy

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan on Sunday elected Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui as the party chairman in what some disgruntled leaders described as an act in sheer violation of the MQM-P constitution.

An MQM-P spokesperson said in a brief statement that a meeting of the party’s central committee “unanimously elected former convener Dr Siddiqui as the chairman of the MQM-Pakistan”.

The meeting was presided over by Dr Siddiqui and attended by senior leaders Syed Mutafa Kamal, Dr Farooq Sattar, Nasreen Jalil, Anid Kaimkhani, Faisal Subzwari, Aminul Haque and Rizwan Babar.

However, the statement remained silent about the election of any other office-bearer.

Disgruntled leaders describe the act as violation of party’s constitution

“The meeting decided to set up a central council to assist the central committee and the names of its members will be announced soon,” the statement concluded.

The pre-1992 central committee of the then Mohajir Qaumi Movement was comprised of a chairman, senior vice chairman, vice chairman, general secretary, joint, finance and information secretaries. Slain Azeem Ahmed Tariq was the first chairman of the MQM.

After the June 1992 army operation, MQM founder Altaf Hussain dissolved the central committee and constituted a coordination committee which oversaw party affairs until March this year when the current leadership of the MQM-P dissolved it and formed an ad hoc committee.

MQM-P sources said that many former members of the coordination committee were unhappy with the decision and they had stopped coming to the party’s temporary headquarters in Bahadurabad or central election office in PECHS.

Many disgruntled leaders, whom Dawn spoke to, pointed out that in the constitution of the MQM-P any major decision including an amendment to the constitution requires support of two-third majority of the coordination committee.

“The dissolution of the coordination committee is illegal and so does the so-called election of the chairman,” said a senior MQM-P leader, on condition of anonymity.

“The members of the now dissolved coordination committee were elected through an intra-party election, but the convener illegally sent the whole committee packing without even taking workers’ opinion,” he added.

The disgruntled leaders also disclosed that different groups within the MQM-P were involved in a tug of war over the control of the party and each group wanted its ‘loyalists’ to get important positions in the new set-up.

“The MQM-P has not announced names of senior vice chairmen and general secretary due to this reason,” commented a former member of the coordination committee.

Meanwhile, the MQM-P did not respond to Dawn’s questions sent to its media team regarding whether its ad hoc committee was constitutionally empowered to elect a chairman without having an intra-party election; whether the party constitution contains the post of chairman and whether or not two-thirds majority of the coordination committee was needed to amend the party constitution and without this all decisions were illegal.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2024