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| September 26, 2005 | Monday | Sha'aban 21, 1426 |
JI claims gains in tug-of-war with JUI
LAHORE, Sept 25: Though the infight between the Jamaat-i-Islami and the JUI-F in local polls has exposed cracks in MMA ranks, especially in the NWFP, the former claims that it has benefited from it. Jamaat officials claim that the tussle has helped break the myth that the Jamaat’s unprecedented success in the NWFP in 2002 polls was because of the JUI’s vote bank and limit the latter to three districts —- Bannu, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.
“We have established our position that is no less than that of the JUI’s, and gained confidence that we can do on our own.”
Winning against an informal five-party alliance —- representing the PML, the PPP, the PML-N, the ANP and the JUI —- in Dir district has not been an easy task, the officials say.
“We have shown our strength from Kohistan to southern NWFP districts in local elections.”
It has also helped the JI in marginalizing the JUI as its “blackmailing” in the run-up to every National Security Council meeting has come to an end, they say.
For the recent NSC meeting no local or provincial body of the JUI has come up with resolutions demanding that MMA high-ups should at least allow NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani to attend it.
Admitting that the policy has exposed differences in the religious alliance, the Jamaat officials allege that it was the JUI that had first violated the rules of game by siding with the other political parties in Dir district —- the Jamaat stronghold.
They also hold Maulana Fazl’s party responsible for a poor show of religious parties-backed candidates in local polls.
According to preliminary reports, the candidates backed by the JUI and the ANP bagged 16 per cent each of the total votes polled in the NWFP, the Jamaat 14 per cent, the PPP 12 per cent and the PML-N nine per cent.
Had the JUI not ventured to sail out of the MMA fold the religious alliance (read the JUI and the Jamaat as is the case in last national and provincial assemblies polls) could have swept local elections by jointly clinching 30 per cent votes, the Jamaat leaders say.
JUI officials reluctantly admit that its leaders in Dir district may have been the first to side with the parties outside the MMA fold but they claim that it is basically a personality clash between senior NWFP minister Sirajul Haq (of the Jamaat) and MMA parliamentary leader in Senate Maulana Naseeb Gul (of the JUI).
They both belong to Dir district.
At rest of the places, they allege, it were the Jamaat which had sided with parties outside the MMA.
The issue, they claim, had also been taken up earlier in a one-on-one meeting between Qazi Husain and Maulana Fazl and later in the last summit meeting of the religious alliance.
“The Qazi vowed to go along with the other MMA colleagues in future but he said that his party could not back out from alliances it had so far formed for local polls.”
The JUI officials also deny the claim that they have been restricted to three districts.
“We will secure nazims or naib nazims slots in at least 12 to 15 NWFP districts.”
Tehrik-i-Istaqlal president Rehmat Khan Wardag says the MMA, contrary to its performance in 2002 general election, has failed to woo voters because of its own fault.
When district nazims were enjoying all powers in the other three provinces they were being denied the same in the NWFP where DCOs were authorized to utilize funds and carry out development schemes, he says.
As the JUI had not contested the local polls in 2000-01 so it did not have interest in getting funds and powers for nazims, he adds.
Their opponents, especially the ANP, capitalized on this point propagating that it were the religious parties, holding sway in the province, which were not in favour of providing funds to public representatives as in all other provinces development projects were being executed by nazims.
Mr Wardag believes that the Jamaat should have taken a stand and persuaded, rather forced, Chief Minister Akram Durrani to go the way the other provincial governments were treading regarding local councils for it had contested and won scores of seats in the last local polls.
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