MQM backs PM on Senate poll
Party expresses reservations, political situation of the country comes under discussion
ISLAMABAD/KARACHI:
A delegation comprising the federal ministers and parliamentarians from Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Pakistan here called on Prime Minister Imran Khan, said a press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday.
The delegation comprised National Assembly member Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and Sindh lawmakers Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Haider Rizvi. Federal ministers Asad Umar, Ali Haider Zaidi, Aminul Haq, Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, Sindh Assembly member Haleem Adil Sheikh were also present.
During the meeting, the participants discussed the overall political situation as well as the upcoming Senate election. The MQM s parliamentarians assured complete solidarity with the government for election of the upper house of the parliament.
How to hold a grand national dialogue
Opinion
The writer is an analyst and commentator.
A grand national dialogue is an urgent imperative because the institutional arrangements designed to serve the people of Pakistan have now become so heavily burdened with the animus of individual and group interests that they are no longer working.
Parliament’s functioning is compromised, to say the least. The judiciary’s hard-won independence and stature has been undermined by scandal and recriminations. The executive can tweet, but it struggles to get things done. The bureaucracy (as an institutional mechanism) is almost completely incapable of operating outside of the ‘rules of business’ that protect individual and occupational group interests at the expense of the Pakistani people. Most worryingly of all, the military, one that has secured peace for this country after more than a decade-long conflict with violent extremists, is seen as politically partisan.