MMA revived
The Muttahida
Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) stands revived as a five-party alliance of religious groups
on the eve of the general elections. The fact that it chose on March 20, 2018
Maulana Fazlur Rehman as president and Liaquat Baloch as secretary general only
underlines the fact that the really significant parties in the alliance are the
Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) respectively. The
other three, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP), Tehreek-i-Islami Pakistan (TIP)
and Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (MJAH) are not players with considerable
political clout in electoral contests. A notable but not surprising omission is
Maulana Samiul Haq of the infamous Haqqania madrassa that has trained so many
religious extremists over the years and enjoys the reputation of the father of
the Taliban. Lately, Maulana Samiul Haq has grown closer to the PTI of Imran
Khan that has been in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) since 2013 and been
generous in grants for the Maulana’s madrassa. Addressing a press conference in
Karachi after the selection of the top leaders of the MMA, Maulana Fazlur
Rehman focused his message on the mission of the MMA, referring to its glory
days under Musharraf when it was ‘elevated’ to the party in power in KP, and
its long standing desire to bring in an Islamic system in Pakistan. It is just
as well that Maulana Fazlur Rehman made no attempt to define what such a system
would consist of, since that could open the Pandora’s box of the differing
interpretations of the faith by even the religious parties allied in the MMA.
It remains to be seen whether the MMA’s promised manifesto in the first week of
April 2018 will enlighten us more on this sticky subject. The MMA’s best bet
remains a return to power in KP, but there are some factors that may make this
an uphill task. Although the performance of the PTI government led by Chief
Minister Pervez Khattak has been described by sympathetic and hostile opinion
as ‘mixed’, it may not prove bad enough to allow the MMA to breach its walls in
the coming electoral contest. The JI has been a coalition partner in the KP
PTI-led government since the 2013 polls. How it will reconcile to the
electorate’s satisfaction it now travelling in two boats remains an intriguing
question. Also, although it is not known if the deep state is once more behind
(and the benefactor?) of MMA 2.0, it is certainly a transformed political
landscape from when the MMA enjoyed Musharraf’s unstinted support from 2002
onwards. At the time, because of the shadow of the deep state over its
formation and success in KP, the MMA came to be dubbed the ‘Mullah-Military
Alliance’. Whether that description still fits only time will tell.
The problem the religious
parties and groups have faced in our history is how to translate their street
power based on committed cadres (and therefore nuisance value) into electoral
success. Whenever they have fought elections individually and separately, the
results have been disappointing for them, translating into votes in single
figures and seats of a similar quantum. That may well have triggered the ‘plan’
during Musharraf’s tenure to field these otherwise disparate and often feuding religious
parties in a unified platform in the 2002 elections. Whether that was the only
reason for its only success so far in winning in one province or the ‘benign’
support of the deep state helped is open to conjecture. Having travelled
forlorn through the thicket of our politics after the Musharraf regime’s departure,
with the exception of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s manoeuvring his party into the corridors
of power with the help of the PML-N and the JI having enjoyed a berth as the
junior partner of the PTI in KP, better sense and perhaps ‘advice’ seems to
have carried the day and lubricated the wheels of the resurrected MMA. Whether
this chariot will upset the given political configuration in the country or in
KP is something only time and the outcome of the general elections will decide.
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