MQM voted for Gilani without 'deal': WikiLeaks

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ISLAMABAD: A secret cable sent to Washington by the then US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, revealed that the MQM had voted for Yousuf Raza Gilani without making any deal with the PPP.

According to the cable, parliamentary leader of MQM Dr Farooq Sattar commented to the then visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher on March 28, 2008 (three days after the newly-elected National Assembly voted Yousuf Raza Gilani as the prime minister) that in 2002 too his party wanted to work with the PPP. However, the MQM was forced to align with the PML-Q after the PPP spurned its advances.

Dr Sattar said his party was again eager to work with the PPP. But the PPP was not serious about taking the MQM on board, he regretted, accusing PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif of leading PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari up the garden path, the cable added.

The PPP could have formed a government without Nawaz Sharif, Sattar commented, but the Nawaz’s party succeeded in isolating the PPP by preventing the MQM from joining the new government.”

The cable quoted Mr Sattar as saying that the MQM had been ordered by party chief Altaf Hussein to respect the PPP mandate. However, Sattar worries the PPP is not serious about taking them on board as partners.

The cable reveals that the MQM had voted for Mr Gilani in the election of prime minister on its own and without any give-and-take with the PPP.