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PML(Q), MMA- same bedfellows!
By Irshad Salim |
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 OCT
19: The Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam
also known as the 'King's party' has
said that it would not form alliance with the
parties taking dictation from abroad, meaning Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif.
This decision was taken at a
meeting of the party’s elected members, according to its
spokesman.
The PML-Q spokesman further said the party had not as yet nominated any candidate for the slot of
Prime Minister, but the name of Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali
from Baluchistan was on top of the list.
If the King's party would have no truck with PPPP and PML(N),
then it is left with no choice but to negotiate with the newly
emerged religious grouping called MMA and urban Karachi's
MQM which controls street power and has provincial autonomy
as its agenda.
Even though MMA announced that they would not join hands with
those who supported amendments made by Musharraf to the 1973
constitution, meaning PML(Q), it may drop its stance after
looking at the bigger picture: 100 percent control of NWFP, and
Baluchistan provinces, and control of the center...enough to make
future headways in the remaining two provinces- Punjab and Sindh.
From the establishment point of view, such an arrangement may be
acceptable, because it would make dealing with the "noisy one's"
easy once they were on board. The fact of the matter is that the
religious parties have always been 'on board' vis-a-vis the
establishment's long term agenda which is primarily dictated by
Kashmir-India syndrome, a subject the religious camp takes to
the heart.
Hectic behind the scene discussions and negotiations appear to
be on full speed among PML(Q), MMA, MQM and the independents. Again,
the choice of Jamali as the compromise candidate for the PM slot
is interesting.
Jamali is known to have had working relationship with the Moulvis specially JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rahman who dominate NWFP
and Baluchistan - provinces that are contiguous to Afghanistan's pashtun
belt, and who have won at least 51 NA seats, enough to be a
'balancing power' and a 'nuisance' in the parliament.
Does this mean that a PML(Q) and MMA coalition government is
almost a done deal? Probably so. Visits by British, American and
some other western ambassadors to meet and congratulate the six-party religious
alliance leaders is an indication, for one.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed of Jamaat Islami's post election statements
on Pakistan's foreign policy and negotiation on the
presence of US forces in Pakistan also point to the direction of
a grand compromise between King's party and the 6-party
religious alliance. In a post-election statement, he is stated
to have said, "We
are ready to cooperate with the United States in the war against
terrorism, but the Americans should not expect support from us
in the war against Islam or Muslims."
He also expressed the MMA's readiness to forthwith talk with
American officials to work out their mutual interests. He was
reported as saying that the MMA would show flexibility
regardless of its pronouncements during the election
campaign, and would like to cooperate with the war in
Afghanistan.
If such a coalition (acceptable to the army and its western ally) does
take shape, one thing
the Pakistani masses can be definitely assured of is a new era in politics
where the players follow army's dictates thru the newly created
National Security Council. A Turkish diet?
The MMA includes all those parties who were participants and
beneficiaries of a Pak military-US nexus during the 10-year
Afghan war
against the Russians.
The Jamaat-i-Islami party
(JI), one of the biggest MMA constituent groups, was the flag
carrier of the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Additionally, both the JUI's produced jihadis thru their CIA-ISI
funded madrassas and sent them off to fight the Afghan war as a
'holy war'!
Having said that, the military establishment may now move
to accelerate their 'Turkish experiment'. Musharraf admires the
Turkish system. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the
end-justifies the means : the end must be stability of the
country and emergence of Pakistan as a moderate state.
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