Pakistan: Religious parties revive alliance for polls

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan

Pakistan’s six mainstream religious parties announced Wednesday that a defunct electoral alliance has been revived ahead of general elections next year.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which represents all major Islamic schools of thought in Pakistan, was dormant before elections in 2008 following differences between the country’s two largest Islamic parties - Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI).

The decision to revive the alliance was made at a meeting of the heads of the religious parties in the southern port city of Karachi.

The MMA, established after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan performed well in the 2002 elections, securing 66 seats in the 342-member National Assembly, and formed a government in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Following the deactivation of the alliance, however, the religious parties failed to repeat the 2002 performance in the next two elections, forcing them to reunite.

But analysts do not expect the alliance to repeat the 2002 performance for several reasons.

“The political situation in 2002 was very much in favor of the MMA because of a nationwide wave of sympathy due to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the absence of two popular political leaders from the country,” Abdul Khalique Ali, a Karachi-based political analyst, told Anadolu Agency, referring to three-time premier Nawaz Sharif and slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who had been in exile from 2000-2008 and 1999-2007.

Imran Khan, a former cricket star and head of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is another factor which undermines the MMA’s chances of victory, according to Ali.

“The MMA will be the third choice for right-wing voters after Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and Khan’s PTI,” he said.

However, he agreed that the alliance could manage to secure a significant number of seats in several pockets of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and southwestern Baluchistan province.

The next general elections are slated for September 2018.