The core reason ( The cruel and unjustified quota system ) that Mohajirs of Sindh( Urban ) supported MQM with all their means and all the possible power is once more here :) .
If this cruel and unjustified quota system will continue like this then the young generations of Sindh( Urban ) has only two options .
Either become a slave or a fighter .
Although in past MQM got all the support from Sindh ( U ) but unfortunately they failed and failed badly .
The new generation of Sindh ( U ) is now without any goal , without power , without guide , without leader . But it will not go forever .
Only a single incident may change all the scenario . It happened before and may happen in future .
I wouldnt say they failed miserably. Before 2008 things were really better, and uptill the closure of 90, the organisation on ground was also really helpful. But yeah from 2008 things started going downhill. The core reason for this was the pedestal on which they placed AH and gave him the complete control. Stalwarts of MQM were against the the elevation of his status within the party that started around late 90s. Absolute power corrupts people. Thats why change is needed at the top regularly. Other than that the organisational structure of MQM and the dedication of workers was the best. only rivaled by JI in the country. And JI succeeded where MQM failed in the aspect of organisation, i.e. have regular elections for the top post.
Among the current lot, only Farooq Sattar has the ability to lead, but his nonconfrontational attitude led others to oust him from the party. Restructuring is needed badly and MQM needs to learn from the past mistakes.
As far as achievements of MQM goes, things went down miserably for Karachi from around 2010, and those were blocked by MQM before. That was the achievement. Yes MQM didnt achieve all its goals, but it did prevent a lot of things. One of the best example is, within 1 month of the closure of 90, the foreign currency department of statebank was moved from Karachi to Lahore. Imagine, when almost all of the exports and imports takes place through this city, almost all of the banks have hq in this city, the govt decided it was best to move this up north. There are thousands of examples like these, which MQM prevented in the past. I know for a fact for local issues ranging from conflict between neighbors to bigger issues were mostly resolved by unit office bearers, and they were usually called to solve the issues, because the police and rangers never responded before and still dont do that. Thats personal experience, recently we caught a serial thief red handed from our house with the help of neighbors, called the police, atleast 10 times they showed up after 6 hours, even though the police station was just 3 km away. I remember people saying that if unit structure was active, they would have called the police and made sure police came. Karachi is a complete organisational mess right now. SP is 100 worse than the robbers. last month a friend of mine got hit from behind by a pvt car belonging to a family member of SP officer, and he was forced to pay for complete damage. Who do you complain to when you are getting harassed by police officers??
As far as militant wing goes. That was a huge negative point, but All parties in Karachi have militant wings. and all of them were involved in extortion. you cannot single out MQM for this.