“Impossible to live with you but, I know, I could never live without you …,” Shirley Bassey’s voice comes wafting in through the open window from somewhere in the neighbourhood as I attempt to analyse news reports that the MQM may be set to rejoin the Sindh government.

Interesting that those dozen-odd words offer an apt description of the relationship between the Pakistan Peoples Party (in power) and it’s now-ally, now-foe Muttahida Qaumi Movement. This intense love-hate has marked their ties over a quarter century since being first established following the 1988 general elections.

Shirley Bassey’s song may have been written about a tormented, twisted relationship between two individuals but where the PPP and MQM’s reality in Sindh is not very different, neither is the MQM’s relationship with whosoever is in power. In fact, with power itself.

The only occasion the MQM seemed at peace with itself being in power was to a large extent when it joined Jam Sadiq Ali in the 1990s when the PPP’s Sindh mandate was forcefully undermined by Sanghar’s Machiavellian politician.

Of course, it was most at ease following retired Gen Pervez Musharraf’s ISI-engineered elections in 2002 (we have all heard retired Maj-Gen Ihtasham Zameer’s televised confessions) when it joined chief minister Ali Mohammad Mahar’s administration.

Arbab Rahim may have subsequently become the chief minister but, it seemed, the real authority lay elsewhere. Yes, Arbab who had little locus standi in rural Sindh owed his office to the MQM and the party, with Musharraf patronising it and showering it with unprecedented ‘development’ funds, ruled the roost.

During this period, the MQM was also in charge of the critically important home ministry which allowed the party to induct a large number of its supporters in the police and also develop an intelligence network to be relied on if bad times were to return.

Most political entities covet the support of the administration including the police. But for the MQM its importance is manifold because use of force is integral to its style of politics. This, it may have found, allows it to further cement its large electoral support base and keep dissidence in check.

Although the MQM refused to support the NRO at the beginning of the last government’s tenure, it continued to enjoy considerable influence because the PPP-led coalition would have found it hard to survive in Islamabad without its numerical support in the National Assembly.

However, if the statements of its leaders from those five years are examined they’d be no different from other periods where, despite being partners in government, its rhetoric would shame any Opposition’s words.

It has often used a revolving door approach to its partnership with the PPP, exiting (or threatening to exit) the government and then returning. Perhaps, the lure of its often aggressive-victim rhetoric with its simultaneous courting of power makes it irresistible to its supporters.

However, when it last left power — on Feb 16, 2013 to be exact — its purpose was to seek the office of the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly. This was vital to gaining a decisive say, along with the PPP, in the caretaker set-up of the province. This was imperative to smoothing an electoral win.

Post-polls last year, Altaf Hussain may have chided the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif for a huge win using the 1980s slogan ‘Jaag Punjabi jag, teri pug noon laga daagh’ but soon realised that the PPP was able to form a government on its own in Sindh, leaving the MQM without much leverage.

Altaf Hussain then congratulated the prime minister and later voted for the PML-N’s presidential candidate in an attempt to win over the Punjab-based party. But the prime minister appeared in no mood to welcome the MQM as a partner again given his past experiences.

With their support bases in Sindh in such numbers that neither can go elsewhere, the PPP and the MQM ought to be natural partners or at least two parties able to respect each other’s mandate. However, when ethnicity defines the politics of one, the other also starts to see it as a zero-sum game. The consequences are there for all to see.

More recently the ongoing operation in Karachi has started to pinch the MQM. Its London-based leader, who is battling ill-health and faces a raft of possible prosecutions including some on very grave and serious charges, may have started to feel the need for support again.

His statement wooing the military are a matter of record as are suggestions that the ISI may be holding two material witnesses who can potentially help convict all those involved in the murder of former party leader Dr Imran Farooq in London.

Whether the military has softened its stance towards the MQM isn’t clear but there seems little let-up in the operation. This is why perhaps Altaf Hussain has quickly put aside his threat to seek Sindh1 and Sindh2 (effectively a division of the province) and shake hands with the PPP.

Long after Altaf Hussain and Asif Zardari are consigned to (political) history, other leaders such as tweeting-from-the-hip Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and summoned-home-from-the-US Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui may lead their parties. Hopefully, the next generation of leaders may have newer, fresher, even better, ideas on how to take the ties forward with fewer bumps than in the past.