MQM-PPP off-on romance As predicted in this space, the MQM’s departure from the PPP-led government coalition literally weeks before the elections may not have constituted a total break. The immediate cause of the MQM’s departure was not clear, but the development gave the Sindh PPP the opportunity to repeal the Sindh People’s Local Government (SPLG) Act 2012 and reinstate the 1979 local government system. Apart from Pir Pagara’s PML-F and ANP, both of whom quit the coalition when the SPLG was promulgated, with the latter returning recently, the Sindhi nationalists and even the ranks of the Sindh PPP were resentful of what was essentially a hurried passage of the SPLG to virtually hand over the cities of Sindh to the MQM in perpetuity. With the departing MQM no longer able to exert pressure on its larger coalition partner the PPP to do its bidding, the Sindh Assembly wasted no time in throwing out the SPLG. The MQM federal and provincial ministers and Sindh Governor Eshratul Ibad too had resigned in the wake of the MQM’s departure, but now, on instructions from MQM supremo Altaf Hussain, the Governor has withdrawn his resignation and reassumed his duties, having met President Asif Ali Zardari in Lahore to seal his return. The ministers’ resignations are intact, and the MQM has not, as has been its practice through the last five years, returned to the fold of the coalition. The ubiquitous interior minister Rehman Malik, who has again and again played the role of troubleshooter in matters related to the difficult ally of the PPP, has once again had a meeting with Altaf Hussain in London, after which there is talk in the air of the core committee of both parties discussing matters, which no doubt will include the SPLG issue as well as the possibility of seat adjustments in the elections. This means that, as the reports after the London meeting indicate, both parties are not at the point of no return and regard the relationship as intact despite recent differences, and although they will go into the elections as separate parties with their own symbols, etc, cooperation is on the cards. Basically, any such cooperation would be centred on seats in the cities, since the MQM’s presence in the rural areas of Sindh is, to put it politely, thin. However, the MQM’s hopes of once again dominating the cities of Sindh may receive a setback from the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) insistence that its order to carry out fresh delimitation of constituencies in Karachi be implemented by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) even without a census. The ECP, succumbing to MQM pressure according to news reports, had retreated from its initial stance that it would carry out the SC’s orders in letter and spirit and attempted to justify its about turn by pleading the fresh delimitation could not be carried out without a census. The SC has given short shrift to this smokescreen and ordered the ECP to do its bidding. This is essential if the gerrymandering of constituencies imposed by the Musharraf regime to advantage the MQM is to be corrected. This constitutes the second defeat for the MQM in recent days, after the SPLG debacle. It appears from these developments that the era of the ability of the MQM to bend things its own way as it has been able to do since 1999, may finally be drawing to a close. Not a moment too soon, one might add, if free, fair and transparent elections are the objective.