Daily Times

Cracks within the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) continue to deepen as the religious alliance remains at loggerheads over seat adjustments on several constituencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), well-placed sources within the alliance said on Saturday.

A senior member of the alliance who wished to go unnamed said that bone of contention between the JI and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) were six National Assembly (NA) and 15 provincial assembly seats in KP. “The differences surfaced following reservations expressed by the JI’s lower cadre leaders, regarding the dominating role being played by JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman,” he said.

He said a number of senior leaders of the Jamaat expressed their reservations over the little say of JI amir Siraj-ul-Haq in the alliance’s affairs, adding that JI members received 37 tickets for the provincial assembly, while JUI-F members got 62 tickets. Similarly, JI members got 11 tickets for the National Assembly, while JUI-F received 26 tickets in KP.

The parties in the alliance have differences over seats in Punjab as well. Political analysts believe that the revival of the religious alliance is purely interest-driven as the five religious parties got united despite having a different political and religious approach. They say that securing majority seats in the fast-approaching election will be quite difficult for the MMA because of the individual parties past record in KP and other provinces.

Besides JI and JUI-F, the alliance includes Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), Tehreek-e-Islami Pakistan (TIP) and Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (MJAH). The MMA was revivsed on March 20 with JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Liaquat Baloch of JI as the president and secretary general, respectively.

Another MMA member Daily Times approached said that the alliance faced serious challenges as a number of issues were yet to be settled.

The two major parties in the alliance (JUI-F and JI) still have differences over the merger of formerly Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with KP.

Owing to the differences over the FATA merger, the JUI-F and the JI agreed to field separate candidates in the tribal districts, said Rashid Umer Aolakh, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) central deputy media coordinator.

He insisted that the MMA had settled the thorny issue of seat adjustment in KP on almost 90 percent constituencies. There are some issues that need to be sorted out.”

“The two major parties of the coalition have reached consensus to leave FATA open as every party is allowed to field candidates from their respective parties’ forums instead of MMA to avoid confusion,” he said, adding that the supreme council was trying to resolve the differences on seats in KP and Punjab.

One party missing from the revived MMA is Maulana Samiul Haq’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Sami (JUI-S), which has refused to rejoin the alliance despite repeated requests by the leaders of the other religio-political parties. Instead, the JUI-S has drifted towards Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the two parties have discussed a possible electoral alliance for contesting the 2018 general election.

Published in Daily Times, July 1^st 2018.