The February 18, 2008 parliamentary elections have proved to be a referendum against the policies of President Pervez Musharraf and the former ruling coalition. The anti-Musharraf forces virtually turned the tables on the pro-Musharraf outfits. The electorate, defying threats of death and destruction, went to the polling stations and skittled out the parties’ candidates, who ruled the country during last five years and supported a military dictator.
The people of Pakistan, through ballots on February 18, spoke loudly that dictatorship, autocracy and despotism belong to the past and there is no place for any authoritarian ruler and usurpers in today’s Pakistan.         
They also rejected the politics of opportunism, horse trading and changing of loyalties just for personal and vested interests of few, as almost all those, who became turncoats and ditched their parties on whose tickets they had been elected in 2002 elections, faced humiliating drubbing by the voters in the February 18 polls.  
The people of Pakistan also made the fact clear through the electoral exercise that they are quite capable of deciding who should run their country and how.
Although the anti-Musharraf forces staged a dignified come back, but none of the party could gain clear-cut majority to form government in the centre and provinces with the sole exception of Sindh.
Although Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarian (PPPP) emerged as the single largest party in center with over 110 seats followed by Pakistan Muslim League-N, but it cannot form government alone and needed PML-N’s support for formation of government.
Similarly, in NWFP assembly ANP has come out to be the single largest party but have it doesn’t have the required number for the formation of government and it also needed PPP or other parties’ support to form government. Same is the case in Punjab and Balochistan Assembly, where PML-N and PML-Q emerged as single largest parties respectively but cannot form government on their own. 
The only exception is Sindh Assembly, where PPPP enjoyed simple majority to form a strong and stable government.
As the three major winners of the February 18 parliamentary elections, the PPP-P, PML-N and ANP, have agreed to form coalition governments in the centre and in the provinces, they can easily form strong and stable governments in the center, Punjab and NWFP.       
As far as the province of Sindh is concerned, the PPP-P has comfortable majority to form government in the province, but government formation in Sindh have turned out to be a heatedly debated subject nowadays in the provincial capital and Islamabad.
It is a fact that there has been a rural and urban divide in Sindh and in the recent elections, MQM bagged majority seats in Urban areas of the province -- Karachi and Hyderabad, similarly the PPP clinched most of its seats from the rural areas of the province.
As the MQM has been a strong ally of President Musharraf during the last five years, it enjoyed absolute power in Sindh and had considerable share in the federal government during the last government’s tenure.
Now all the pro-military led regime or pro-Musharraf parties suffered drubbing at the hands of voters except MQM (although it is also a debatable subject how MQM managed to control its grip on the urban centres of Sindh in the polls), it feel isolated.
The MQM leaders have started issuing threatening statements warning of consequences if its ‘mandate’ was not accepted. They repeatedly asked all the parties to accept the mandate given to MQM by the masses. Although, to be ruling party of Sindh, PPP-P, have not spelled out any word about not accepting the mandate of MQM, instead they have repeatedly said PPP wanted to take MQM along if it wanted to go with it.
Even the co-chair of PPP, Asif Ali Zardari have talked to MQM chief Altaf Hussain and expressed his desire to take MQM along.  Then, what has caused MQM to issue such threatening statements.
It is a fact that the city, which is the revenue engine of the country, has suffered a lot due to the confrontational and ethnic politics and the fragile inter-community and communal relationship. The city, which generates about 70 per cent of the total revenue of the country and provides employment opportunities to millions of people across the country, must not be pushed into the 90’s era.
Following the general elections of February 18, violence targeting political activists and members of certain ethnical community has been started. As the city doesn’t have a good record of inter-community and ethnic relationship, any attempt to deteriorate the comparatively better ethnic environment would be detrimental both for the country and for the city.
It has been pointed out time and again that some elements wanted to create ethnic rift in the city just for their vested interests and political gains. It is the responsibility of those at the helm of the affairs to expose those elements and foil their vested designs.
On Friday night, three workers of the Pakistan People’s Party were gunned down in Baldia Town.
The three PPP workers, one of them a PPP candidate’s polling agent, were sitting in a real estate agency, when unidentified attackers opened fire on them.
All the victims were PPP workers and one of them, Fazal Dad, was a polling agent in the vicinity on the election day. The other two victims were Sher Khan and Feroz Khan from the NWFP.
PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari strongly condemned the killing of PPP workers and asked them not to be provoked and remain peaceful.
With the killing of the PPP workers, the shopkeepers pulled down their shutters and vehicular traffic disappeared from the streets as panic and tension gripped the entire locality, which echoed with intense gunfire.
Some days ago, an eight-year-old girl and a man were killed in  Ranchhore Lines area, when the area turned into a battlefield after a scuffle between workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan People’s Party led to firing which left four persons, including a policeman, wounded. The clash brought life in the area to a standstill.
A PPP provincial assembly candidate from the area was fired upon when he was driving back after failing to meet the hospitalised men injured in the shootout.
Eyewitnesses said armed persons surrounding the Civil Hospital, roughed up Habib Jan, the PPP candidate from PS-110 who lost to Mohammad Shoaib of the MQM.
Two men accompanying Mr Jan were also beaten up inside the hospital’s emergency section by unidentified armed men. However, police escorted out all the three from the Civil Hospital with a policeman for their security.
When their car came outside in the street along the Civil Hospital, it was fired upon. In the shooting, a policeman, Ahmed Ali of the Risala police station, was wounded. Mr Jan also received a minor injury when a bullet brushed past his right hand.
The PPP accused the MQM of provoking the incident. It also alleged that the MQM had rigged the polls and used the caretaker government as a platform for maneuvering the poll results.  We won both national and provincial assembly seats from the area but by the morning the results were changed on the direct involvement of the Sindh governor, said Habib Jan, the PPP candidate from the constituency.
He said the MQM was not allowing opponents to celebrate their victory in the elections neither they had a right to raise voice against rigging, which could lead to more law and order problems in the coming days.
However, the MQM s coordination committee rejected such allegations and accused the PPP of damaging law and order through armed violence instead of accepting defeat.
The following days, a worker of PML-N was killed in model colony by unidentified armed men. Some elements with vested interests might take advantage of the situation, in which people of particular communities are being targeted, and could cause eruption of ethnic clashed in the city.
In such a situation the harsh statements of MQM leaders have fuelled the speculations of any unsuitability and law and order situation in the city.
Addressing a general worker convention on Feb 24, Altaf Hussain said his party will not like to join any coalition if the mandate given to it was accepted by way of ‘charity’.
The following day addressing women workers Altaf Hussain has said that his party workers, including women, are ready to sacrifice their lives but they will never compromise on their self-respect, dignity and honour.
Do not push us against the wall. If anything happens tomorrow, do not hold us responsible. We are against violence and terrorism but we are also human beings and we will never compromise on our self-respect, dignity and honour, said Mr Hussain on Monday.
He blamed ‘certain people’, dubbing them as traitors, of conspiring to divide the people of Sindh.
Commenting on a statement attributed to some representatives of the Pakistan People s Party that they had leaders like Naseerullah Babar and Abdullah Shah, he asked the international community, foreign observers and diplomats to take notice of the remarks made by the PPP. The MQM does not want war. This is 2008 and we are ready to give our lives but not ready to surrender or retreat, he added.
Mr Hussain said that the mandate given to the MQM by millions of people had to be accepted at all cost.
A statement attributed to City Nazim Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal has also appeared in the press in which he has said that Karachi can face law and order situation if MQM was not included in the new government set-up. The statement of the city Nazim is improper.
The PPP have clear-cut majority in the house and democracy means rule of majority. If it do not include MQM in the government, it has the right to do so because PPP-P has the required numbers of MPAs to form government. Threatening of law and order situation if anyone was not included in the government could only be called blackmailing.
The Awami National Party has taken strong exception of the statement. Sindh ANP President Shahi Syed has urged the authorities to take a serious notice of what he called hidden threat given by the nazim. Such a political statement from a non-political office is tantamount to degrading this office, he said.
He said that no party could claim to be a sole representative of Karachiites, as several communities lived in the city. Those who claim themselves as representatives of Karachi should realize the ground realities, he said, adding that any free and fair election in Karachi could show the real political worth of such elements.
He observed, no party can form a government by threatening their rivals. Instead we should jointly work for a peaceful atmosphere in the city.
In face of such harsh and threatening statements by MQM leaders, media report said, the members-elect on provincial assembly seats belonging to the Pakistan People s Party (PPP) have reportedly requested the party leadership to give the portfolio of the Sindh governor to former Interior Minister Gen. (Retd) Naseerullah Babar.
News papers quoting unnamed sources said that the MPAs who called on PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and other central party leaders in the federal capital recently made this request and were of the opinion that there was a need to keep a balance in the Sindh administration.
The MPAs were of the view that Sindh is a province of Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi and Pushtoo-speaking communities and pointed out that, currently, there is a tradition wherein chief ministers were chosen from the Sindhi-speaking community while the province’s governors hailed from the Urdu-speaking community.
They pointed out that the situation in the province has now changed with the victory of two ANP MPAs and that there was a need to delegate Sindh governorship to the Pushtoo-speaking community.
According to the sources, they, pointing out that the Sindh Chief Secretary Fazalur Rehman and the IGP Sindh belong to the Urdu-speaking community, said that the Sindh governor portfolio should be given to a member of the Pushtoo-speaking community. They added that Gen. (Retd) Naseerullah Babar was a suitable candidate for the position.
Party insiders also claimed that the PPP leadership plans drastic reshuffling vis-a-vis the portfolios of the governors of all four provinces after they form the government in the centre.
Meanwhile, a PPP leaders and MPA-elect Pir Mazharul Haq, who is also considered as a contender for the top slot of chief minister ship of the province,    has said that the PPP will respect the mandate of all political parties but it will not yield to blackmail so far as the formation of government is concerned.
Criticising the MQM for adopting a threatening posture, he said the cardinal principle of democracy was the rule of majority and that the majority party had the exclusive right to form government.
He said that PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari had clearly stated that a coalition government would be formed in the centre with the help of the PML-N and the ANP but as far as Sindh was concerned, he had never made such a commitment.
He said all Mr Zardari had said was that he would try to take along all political parties but it did not mean that all parties would be included in the government.
If everyone was to sit on treasury benches then who will sit in the opposition, which had no less an important role to play, the former Sindh law minister said.
Referring to the statement of the Karachi city district nazim, he said that he had been elected on non-party basis but he had adopted a threatening posture towards the PPP and even pressurised the business community to issue a statement on power sharing.
He pointed out that in the 2002 elections, the PPP had won majority of seats in Sindh but a non-entity Ali Mohammad Mahar was thrust upon Sindh as chief minister and the majority party had to sit on opposition benches for five years.