09 March 2005	Wednesday	27 Muharram 1426

PESHAWAR, March 8: Those who know Maulana Fazlur Rehman would tell you what a shrewd politician the JUI-F leader is. While Jamaat-i-Islami Amir, Qazi Hussain Ahmad chose to blow hot, hitting out at the military establishment , Maulana Fazl played it cool and calculated. It is not for nothing that the JUI-led MMA government in the NWFP has survived despite heavy odds and challenges both from within and outside the province.

That the establishment was not comfortable with the new conservative government in the NWFP was evident from day one. What, however, was not clear was the longevity of the MMA coalition, given the inexperience of its managers as well as its divergent views and policies on both domestic as well as foreign issues. But the MMA government has survived and indications are that it will remain in power till the time the establishment decides to hold the country's next general elections.

President Musharraf's political thinkers in Islamabad appear to have reached a conclusion: 'Don't disturb the MMA government'. As long as the religious alliance rules the roost in the NWFP, it will have a stake in the present dispensation and it will not disturb the applecart.

This is precisely the message that has not gone unnoticed in the MMA and more so in the JUI-F which has a bigger and much larger stake not only in the NWFP, where it leads the coalition as senior partner, but also in Balochistan where it shares power with the PML-Q as a junior partner.

By and large, it has been a win-win situation for the MMA as well as the establishment. The MMA has been ruling the two provinces without much of an opposition and the establishment got what it wanted - passage of the 17th Amendment and legislation that allowed President Musharraf to remain as army chief.

Much of the credit for achieving and maintaining this rather delicate balancing act goes to none other than Maulana Fazl. His public statements notwithstanding, the JUI secretary-general worked behind the scenes as a counterbalance to Qazi Hussain Ahmad to ensure that the alliance did not come into direct conflict with the establishment.

So there was little surprise when the JUI provincial executive council in a meeting a few months ago raised the issue of the continued boycott of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Chief Minister Muhammad Akram Khan Durrani of the National Security Council.

A resolution adopted at that time had said that while Maulana Fazl could opt to stay out of the NSC meeting, there was no reason why the chief minister could not attend in his capacity as chief executive of the province.

The resolution adopted last Sunday at the JUI's general council meeting has gone a step further. The 700-member council "opposed" the continued absence of Maulana Fazl and the NWFP chief minister from the NSC meeting and "unanimously demanded of the MMA supreme council" to let the two leaders attend NSC meeting.

The JUI's Punjab chapter had already made a similar demand in February. The party's Balochistan chapter led by MNA Maulana Muhammad Shirani, who had a meeting with President Musharraf recently, has long been calling for an end to the NSC boycott by the MMA. Sindh, say JUI leaders, has been supportive too.

So when the matter goes to the JUI central shura later this month, it is obvious that it will endorse the already-binding resolution of its NWFP chapter. Simply put, what can be a better way of pushing through a decision without facing any political embarrassment? Instead of opting to attend the NSC on his own or taking up the issue with his senior colleagues in the MMA, Maulana Fazl has skilfully and intelligently chosen to good the party's provincial shura, its principal policy-making institution.

The JUI leadership is confident it will be able to convince its partners in the MMA, particularly the JI, on this issue, because in the past, it had agreed to certain decisions to accommodate its alliance partners.

The issue, therefore, is not whether the JUI leader and his chief minister in the NWFP will attend the next NSC meeting. The issue is whether Maulana Fazl would be able to convince the hitherto intractable Qazi Hussain Ahmad and his other colleagues in the MMA and what bearing the JUI decision will have on the MMA and the grouping's relationship with the ARD.