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PESHAWAR: While the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of religious parties, has formally announced its election campaign, it remains to be seen if the alliance will achieve success in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), which the alliance leaders claim is their traditional stronghold.
Addressing a news conference on Saturday in Peshawar, MMA KP senior vice president Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that MMA was revived for enforcement of the Islamic system in Pakistan.
“If MMA comes to power, we will restore Friday as weekend, instead of Sunday, curb usury, Islamization, and the dispensation of immediate justice will also be our priority as currently 1.8 million cases are pending in courts in Pakistan,” said Mushtaq, flanked by JUI-F KP spokesman Abdul Jalil Jan, JI KP general secretary and MMA spokesman Abdul Wasi and other leaders.
Mushtaq said the MMA government would also work to raise the issues of Kashmir, Palestine, Burma and other Muslims at international forums and also to bring back billions of dollars deposited by Pakistanis in overseas accounts, which can generate jobs and make Pakistan a tax-free country.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), which strongly opposed the KP-FATA merger, now said it can re-reconsider its stand. “We will from now take every decision with mutual consultation with our allies, whether to support it or keep opposing it,” said Abdul Jalil Jan spokesman for JUI-F.
Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan said that the MMA would not be an ally of any other party for elections.
“We neither want to forge an alliance with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, nor with Pakistan Muslim League-N and others. In fact, we are in the field against all other secular parties because our aim is different from the other parties,” said Senator Mushtaq, who is also head of Jamaat-e-Islami for KP.
In the 2002 elections, MMA had emerged as a powerful force by forming governments in KP and also a coalition government with Pakistan Muslim Leque ( PML-Quaid ) in Balochistan province while it also got a significant number of seats in the Sindh province and became a strong opposition in the federal government.
An analyst based in Peshawar, Rahimullah Yusufzai, said that MMA had more chances to get seats and form a coalition government in KP. However, he said this time the alliance may not get as much seats as it had received in the 2002 elections.
“The situation in the 2002 elections was favorable to MMA. Maulana Samiul Haq, who heads Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-S, was also part of MMA. Secondly, people voted for MMA because it raised slogans against the US attack on Afghanistan, which was then a burning issue. Also, people voted for them in 2002 to give them a chance for the first time to see if they can deliver,” Yusufzai added.