ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Taj Haider has termed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P)’s decision to support the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the federal government “very unfortunate”. “Free and fair elections are a pre-requisite for stabilisation and strengthening of democracy. At the moment the most crucial issue before the nation is to expose and undo the historic rigging of Elections 2018,” said the PPP senator who is also the in-charge of the party’s election cell. “Support to a party that has been the main beneficiary of this crime tantamount to stabbing democracy in the back for very petty gains. This is a time when all those who believe in democracy should join hands irrespective of their mutual differences,” he maintained. The senator said that opposition benches in any assembly had a major role to play. “The PPP believes that on all major issues the best solutions are those that are taken after serious consultation and building consensus with opposition and that is the policy its provincial government in Sindh will be following.” “Those who do not exist in Sindh even at union council-level have been thrust upon us by foul. Alas, the MQM-P, which always based its politics on genuine or imaginary deprivation of the people of Karachi, has sold the most genuine right of vote of its people for very small gains.” Published in Daily Times, August 3rd 2018.