The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), in its current form, can be best described as a secular party, with the majority of its membership coming from the Urdu-speaking community whose ancestors had emigrated to Pakistan in the event of the Partition. It mainly represents the interests of the urban working class, the urban middle-class and the business community of Karachi and Hyderabad.
The party held 32 seats in the 2008-2013 Parliament — 25 in National Assembly and seven in Senate and according to ECP figures, currently holds 18 seats in the National Assembly.
History Exact details of the party’s inception have been a matter of debate. However, MQM’s origins can be traced back to the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO), an outfit born out of the University of Karachi with an active role in student politics in urban varsity campuses. The APMSO transformed into MQM, a political party fighting for the rights of the Urdu-speaking people who had emigrated to Pakistan around Partition (commonly known as the Mohajir community, which dominates Karachi and other parts of lower Sindh).
The idea of a political party representing the community gained ground when two KU students, Altaf Hussain and Azeem Tariq, formed APMSO in 1978 as a student movement opposing the ‘mullah-feudal nexus’ during Ziaul Haq's regime. This nexus had the support of Islami Jamiat-i-Tuleba (IJT), the Jamaat-i-Islami’s student wing, which previously dominated student politics on Karachi’s varsity campuses.
By 1984, senior APMSO members launched Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) — a political party that was to serve as APMSO’s senior partner.
According to celebrated Sindhi intellectual Khaliq Junejo, during Ziaul Haq’s regime, a nexus of Karachi’s leading non-Punjabi business communities encouraged and financed the formation of a ‘street-strong’ Karachi-based party that went on to become MQM.
The MQM swept the 1988 election in Sindh’s urban areas and entered into a cooperation agreement with Pakistan Peoples Party, enabling it to become part of the government. However, differences developed between the parties and in 1989 the alliance fell apart.
The party also saw the formation of a breakaway faction — MQM - Haqiqi. Although the group did not have much of an impact on capturing the original party’s vote bank, it did feature in the increased levels of unrest in Karachi and the notorious 1992 operation.
The well-known Operation Clean-up was preceded by increased political and ethnic violence in urban Sindh. MQM had been organising rallies and strikes which were countered with mass arrests by the then federal government of PPP. The succeeding PML-N government replaced these measures with the military-led Operation Clean-up.
The crackdown drove several MQM leaders and workers into either hiding or leaving the country. Azeem Tariq, the co-founder of the party, was assassinated in 1993, while MQM chief Altaf Hussain left for London and remains in self-imposed exile to this day.
The government’s reins switched from Sharif to Benazir and the army handed over the operation’s proceedings to the then Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar. The operation was then continued by police and Rangers personnel and the crackdown on MQM continued through much of the 1990s.
Political stance The MQM saw a definitive shift in ideology and organisation in July 1997 when its leadership decided to replace the word “Mohajir” from its name with Muttahida, meaning ‘united’. This shift was prompted by the realisation that it had become imperative for the party to progress from representing a community to adapting to the changing ethnic and cultural dynamics of its power bases of Karachi, Hyderabad and other parts of lower Sindh. The logic also entailed that the party may play a greater role in national politics.
The MQM is a secular party with a clear stance against extremism and religious militancy and has faced threats and attacks by Taliban militants on that account. At least two of its lawmakers and several workers have fallen prey to attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other groups.
Historically, the party has been opposed to feudalism and has supported land reforms in the country.
According to its manifesto, MQM’s goals include “eradication of political authoritarianism, abolition of feudal system, promotion of cultural pluralism, devolution of power to the grass root level” and the “induction of the common man in the power structure”.
The party can be credited as one of the few political forces in Pakistan with leadership that does not emerge from the elite — several MQM leaders belong to the middle and lower-middle classes.
Over the years
Following the Sharif government’s 1999 ouster, a general election was held in 2002 and MQM resulted in joining the Musharraf-backed coalition government at the centre.
Around this time, a new generation of MQM members began to come forward. The emergence of Mustafa Kamal, a former mayor of Karachi, and others would herald the introduction of a younger generation to the party’s front-line cadre. Moreover, the party stayed allied with Musharraf until his ouster in 2007.
Even after almost a decade of transformation and reorganisation, the party continued to be haunted by a history of encounters relating to ethnic and political violence.
In 2007, MQM was accused by anti-Musharraf parties and sections of the media for instigating violence on the streets of Karachi when Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry arrived in the city to address a lawyers’ meeting in May of that year.
In the 2008 election, the party again became part of the ruling coalition government at the centre and in Sindh — this time with PPP.
Although it has been in power for the most part of the last five years, MQM has played a game of cat and mouse with the ruling coalition with multiple declarations of leaving and returning to the government.
The major bone of contention between PPP and MQM, the largest and second largest parties in Sindh respectively, has been the issue of local body elections in Karachi.
The other disagreement between the two has been the emergence of armed groups in Karachi, such as Amn Committee which is alleged to have support from PPP.
Days before the 2008-2013 Parliament was set to dissolve, MQM parted ways with the federal and provincial coalitions, citing the “indifference” of the ruling PPP.
In the past three years, MQM also suffered the assassinations of three of its leaders, including the mysterious killing of Imran Farooq in London.
In the 2013 elections, the party managed to retain most seats from Karachi and parts of lower Sindh. Following the elections, MQM and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) remained at loggerheads over Karachi's NA-250 constituency and subsequently in the wake of the killing of PTI office-bearer Zahra Shahid Hussain.
Of more recently, Hussain brought in a number of organisational changes in the party. He disbanded the party's Karachi Tanzeemi (organising) Committee and later its Rabita Committee.
Key figures Altaf Hussain, Farooq Sattar, Mustafa Kamal, Faisal Sabzwari, Raza Haroon, Haider Abbas Rizvi, Rauf Siddiqui, Babar Ghauri, Waseem Akhtar
— Research and text by Sajjad Haider
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