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| November 20, 2002 | Wednesday | Ramazan 14, 1423 |
MMA has lost the power game
LAHORE, Nov 19: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) has had more losses than gains in the power-game in the federal capital since Oct 10 polls.
The six-party religious alliance was not able to reconcile itself to the changing political scenario despite being the second biggest beneficiary of the Legal Framework Order (LFO) after the PML-Q.
The MMA which had rarely discussed the LFO issue in its election campaign made it a major controversy during talks with the PML-Q for government formation. It did so under the influence of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD).
Trapped by the un-elected leadership of the PPP, the PML-N and the ARD — the three direct victims of the LFO, it refused to budge even an inch on issues like the National Security Council, constitutional amendments, 58(2-b) and president in uniform despite knowing that the PPP would strike a deal with the army government whenever the latter desired to do so.
This is what has been happening in recent past. Whenever the army government would come under pressure in negotiations with the MMA, it opened channels with the PPP to defuse that pressure.
The only possible gains for the MMA in the game of negotiations were that it might have been able to create the image that it would not compromise on its principles under any circumstances. Except the intellectual ones, most of the religious activists appreciated their leaders’ stance.
What the Majlis lost in this process were the office of speaker and four ministries in the centre, the office of chief minister in Balochistan and ministries in Sindh and Punjab, which it had been offered by the PML-Q in return for its support for Zafarullah Jamali’s candidature for the office of prime minister.
Its leaders also had their image tarnished in public eyes in their self-contradictory moves in the quest for power, sometimes holding talks with the PPP and sometimes with the PML-Q.
There is no doubt that the NWFP province will remain under the MMa, but, at what cost and under what circumstances? There will be an unending confrontation between the centre and the province, especially at a time when the NWFP is a focal point all over the world due to the US operation against Al Qaeda there and in the neighbouring Afghanistan.
It is also a fact that no provincial government can work properly with strained relations with the centre. Punjab was able to afford such a confrontation when Nawaz Sharif was the chief minister and Benazir Bhutto the prime minister from 1988 to 1990. Could the much smaller NWFP do so at a time when the MMA lacks international support and is perceived by the world as representative of the forces against which the so-called war on terror is going on?
And last but not least is the fact that in the future setup, they chose to sit with forces — the PPP and the PML-N — that they had recently been naming as corrupt and two sides of the same coin? And who will benefit if the current electoral laws are withdrawn and the LFO is scrapped? — Amjad Mahmood
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