KARACHI - PAKISTAN'S ruling coalition suffered a blow on Monday when the second-largest party in the alliance announced it was withdrawing its two ministers from the federal cabinet.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said it was pulling the ministers out because of differences with the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of slain premier Benazir Bhutto.
The move comes just weeks after a prominent religious party walked out of the government, sparking fears the alliance could crumble.
An MQM statement said that government failed to curb corruption and control inflation and added that a decision to stay or leave the coalition at federal and provincial level would be taken in the near future.
'We have two ministers in the federal cabinet and as protest have withdrawn them, but we will not sit on opposition benches,' Haider Abbas Rizvi, a senior MQM leader, said.
Federal minister for ports and shipping Babar Ghauri and federal minister for overseas Pakistanis Farooq Sattar would resign on Tuesday, he said. -- AFP
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