Religious Parties Use Anti-US Rhetoric
to Woo Votes
By
Nadeem Iqbal
ISLAMABAD:
While President Gen Pervez Musharraf was in New York reiterating
Pakistan's commitment to help fight the US-led 'war on terror',
an alliance of six religious parties was raising its anti-American
rhetoric to try to enlarge its limited voter base ahead of the October
election.
How
the religious parties fare in the Oct. 10 poll will show if there
are able to use anti-American rhetoric in the period after Sep.
11 -- and opposition to Musharraf's support for Washington -- to
get wider support in a country where they usually get just four
to five percent of the total vote.
These
parties are hoping that their political stock has been raised by
their formation in April of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United
Council for Action), or MMA -- the first-ever alliance of leading
right-wing religious parties in this South Asian country.
In
the past, religious parties have only formed alliances with conservative
or left-wing mainstream parties.
Qazi
Hussain Ahmed, a top MMA leader, said that the forming of an electoral
alliance by the religious parties for the first time would have
a positive impact on voters. ''Earlier, the people had objected
to the fact that these parties were not sitting together,'' he said.
''This objection has now been removed. The impression that people
look toward 'maulvi' (priest) in religious matters, but not in political
issues, has also been challenged.''
But
this is giving the religious parties too much credit, says political
analyst Adnan Rehmat. He said that the MMA is only pandering to
its strongholds in the areas bordering Afghanistan, but that otherwise
its rhetoric is not expected to win it any friends.
The
prevailing mood in Pakistan is ''pro-Islamic'' rather than ''anti-American'',
he said in an interview. He maintains that there is no opposition
to Musharraf's campaign of uprooting al Qaeda, including other sectarian
and 'jihadist' outfits, because they never enjoyed grassroots support
in the country.
Before
a huge public rally numbering thousands on Sunday, the MMA leaders
declared that the upcoming elections would decide if Pakistan would
continue to live under the ''tutelage'' of the United States and
be robbed of its Islamic identity, or if it would reassert itself
as a
self-respecting sovereign entity.
In
resolutions adopted during the rally in the port city of Karachi,
about 1,000 kilometres south-west of Islamabad, the MMA condemned
plans for the US and British bombing of Iraq. Its leaders also expressed
concern over reports that Pakistan's nuclear installations had been
put under joint US and Pakistan command.
Interestingly,
the MMA election manifesto does not contain any anti-US ideology.
It simply expresses the desire to make 'shariah' (Islamic law) the
supreme law of Pakistan, to see the restoration of constitutional
democracy and a shift away from the current military rule, and to
make the army accountable to civilian law.
During
the first political rally held in the country since the military-led
government lifted a 30-month-long ban on political activity, the
MMA was prevented by the authorities from setting out Saturday on
a ''train march'' from Pakistan's second-largest city of Lahore,
about 200 km
south-east of Islamabad.
In
the ensuing scuffle, the MMA's top leaders were arrested and briefly
detained while the railway station was cordoned off and all bearded
men, despite having valid tickets, were not permitted to board trains,
local media reports said.
The
police had also raided the 'madaris' or religious schools linked
to the religious alliance parties to discourage attendance at the
rally. Thus far, it is the religious parties that have been trying
to make the most use of the lifting of the ban on political activities.
Indeed,
the absence of nation's two biggest vote-grabbing personalities
in the political picture - former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto
and Nawaz Sharif, both living in exile - has provided the religious
parties the political space they need to exert their influence.
Bhutto's
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League
(PML) have not had rallies or public events thus far. Cutting across
sectarian lines, the MMA consists of: Jamat-e-Islami, Jamiat-e-Ulma-i-Islam
Pakistan (Fazal-ur-Rehman group), Jamiat-e-Ulma-i-Pakistan, Markazi
Jamiat-I-Ahle-Hadith Pakistan, Jamiat-e-Ulma-i- Islam (Sami-ul-Haq
group) and Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan.
In
the 1997 election, only one religious party, Jamiat-Ulma-i-Islam
(Fazal-ur-Rehman group), won two out of the 237 seats in the national
assembly.
But
the intervention in the political process of Musharraf - who came
to power in October 1999 in a coup that ousted Sharif -- saw the
number of seats in parliament climb to 352 in August.
The
election commission has come out saying that it will allow 71 parties
to contest the election.
Qazi
said that although he does not see the MMA winning in a landslide
victory, he believes it would win a considerable number of seats
because of the unity symbolised by the first electoral alliance
of all religious schools of thought, as well as anti-US sentiments
in the country.
Thus
far, despite the dismal performance of religious parties in past
elections, their memberships are bigger than that of the left-wing
parties. According to a study 'State of Political Parties in Pakistan',
carried out by analyst Zafarullah Khan in August, only 3.15 percent
of the total registered voters of 72.3 million in this country of
145 million people are members of a political party.
Commenting
on speeches made during Sunday's rally, a leading newspaper commented
: ''To avoid being merely negative, the 'ulama' (religious scholars)
pledged to do away with poverty and illiteracy and promised to introduce
reforms in several sectors.''
But
the parties offered no concrete policies to achieve these goals,
it added. ''This kind of political waffling is not confined to the
religious parties alone: all parties indulge in similar demagoguery
to mobilise the people and enlist their electoral support. The tactics
focus on
discrediting the government of the day and reviling political rivals
without coming up with concrete solutions,'' the newspaper's editorial
added.
Email Story | 
Discuss Story
