KARACHI (AFP) ? The Pakistan government's main coalition partner said Monday it had quit the beleaguered administration, citing the "dictatorial" and "brutal" approach of the ruling Pakistan People's Party.
The departure of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaves the PPP with 207 seats in parliament and a slender majority.
"The MQM leadership and workers have reached the conclusion it is difficult to go along with the Pakistan People's Party, keeping in view its democratic and dictatorial attitude," senior party official Farooq Sattar told reporters.
"The PPP was unwilling to mend its ways leaving us with no option but to quit the coalition government," Sattar said, adding that MQM lawmakers in federal and provincial assemblies would sit on opposition benches.
A spokesman for the governor of the southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, confirmed the governor, also a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) loyalist, had sent his resignation to the president.
"Governor Ishratul Ibad Khan has resigned from his post and sent the resignation to the president's house in Islamabad for approval," spokesman Syed Wajahat Ali told AFP.
Sattar accused the PPP of "forcing" the MQM to withdraw from elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
"When we refused to change our stance, the PPP got the elections for Kashmiri migrants residing in Karachi cancelled on the pretext of security issues," Sattar said.
"It is not possible for us to partner with the PPP any further because of its brutal, ruthless and disloyal character to its partners," said Sattar as hundreds of party workers loudly chanted party slogans.
"Our resignations are ready and will be sent soon to the authorities."
It is second time this year that the MQM has quit the government. In January it left only to rejoin the coalition in the space of a week, following a compromise by the PPP to save its government.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani promised not to introduce a contentious general sales tax, which the United States and other donors had welcomed, on grounds that it would affect ordinary people more than the rich.
The Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) has since joined the coalition, shoring up the PPP's position with its 52 MPs.
The PPP said it hoped to persuade its alienated ally to reverse its decision.
"The issues can be settled with dialogue. We'll go for dialogue again to keep our coalition as intact as ever," Sharjeel Memon, provincial information minister from the ruling Pakistan People's Party told AFP.
Political analysts said the MQM's departure from the coalition would strengthen the military establishment at the government's cost.
"This move is very serious to Pakistan's fragile democracy. It could lead to further political upheaval in Pakistan, disrupt the financial capital Karachi and strengthen the military establishment's grip on power," Tauseef Ahmed Khan, a professor at Federal Urdu University in Karachi, told AFP.
Pakistan is fighting Taliban militancy in its tribal badlands in the northwest. It has a weak economy, with a minimal growth rate and devalued rupee currency.
The International Monetary Fund has suspended a $11.3 billion stand-by arrangement arranged in 2008 to rescue Pakistan from bankruptcy amid a failure by the government to pursue a slew of economic reforms.
"Karachi is already plagued by political violence. Any further bickering would destabilise this financial engine and weaken the country's economy," economist A.B. Shahid said.
Karachi is riven by killings sparked by political and ethnic tensions as well as crime, but violence by Islamist militants is also rising in the city of 16 million people whose port is a hub for NATO supplies bound for Afghanistan.
Last month, it took the navy 17 hours to fight off a handful of militants who killed 10 security officials and destroyed two US-made aircraft at the only naval air base in Karachi.
In 2010, political violence in Karachi was dominated by flare-ups in August after an MQM lawmaker was shot dead and in October on the eve of the election for his successor.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 748 people -- 447 political activists and the rest civilians -- were killed in targeted shootings in the city last year. Targeted killings in 2009 claimed 272 lives.
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