Today marks beginning of end for Govt: Altaf

Updated at: 2027 PST,  Sunday, June 26, 2011  LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Chief Altaf Hussain Sunday said the government had returned through betrayal the support his party had extended to it in its time of trial and asked the party workers to go to courts against the way in which the elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir were held, Geo News reported. “Today marks begging of the end for the government,” Altaf Hussain claimed in his telephonic address to MQM general workers’ meeting near MQM Headquarters in Karachi which could also be heard in the party’s Hyderabad and Lahore centres. He said despite facing repeated criticism for continuing to stick to power, his party had to make a difficult choice of keeping its support on for the government. The MQM Chief appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo motto notice of the ‘mock elections’ by invoking the law and Constitution. He said the attempts to eliminate MQM through state coercion would never meet success. “The Kashmiri people have been robbed of their democratic right of vote through plunder and the entire exercise of elections in Azad Kashmir have not just been sunk into a swamp of doubt but also made totally unacceptable,” he maintained. Altaf Hussain said: “We were urged to contest for one seat and leave the other for People’ Party.” He termed the AJK elections as unlawful and unconstitutional, saying the vote had been rigged through state coercion. “Today’s democratic government has proved itself to be worse than dictatorship by keeping MQM away from the polls and burying the democratic norms,” he added.