February 13, 2007	Tuesday	Muharram 24, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, Feb 12: The central general council of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) meets in Islamabad on Tuesday (today), and the outcome of the moot is not difficult to predict because the alliance’s policy-making body has to take decisions by a majority vote and not by a consensus.

A status quo is the most likely outcome of the meeting which is also scheduled to elect alliance leadership for the next two years as provided by the MMA constitution. As Qazi Husain Ahmad’s tenure ends next month, selection of his successor is also on the agenda of the meeting besides the selection of four vice-presidents, a secretary-general, two deputy general secretaries, a finance secretary and the information secretary.

The main issue on the meeting’s agenda is that all the MMA legislators should resign from the assemblies as well as the Senate. By now the opinion within the MMA has not been ambiguous as MMA’s president Qazi Husain Ahmad has been pleading in favour of resignations and its general secretary and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, is opposed to the idea.

As for polarisation within the six-party religious alliance, three parties — JUI, the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith of Prof Sajid Mir and the Pakistan Islami Tehreek of Allama Sajid Naqvi — are clearly supporting the stance taken by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and the two others - the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan — stand for resignations. The situation of the JUI (Seniors) is different from all other component parties because its amir, Maulana Abdur Rahim Naqshbandi, is said to be in favour of resignations and the general secretary of his party Qari Gul Rehman, also an MNA from Karachi, is supporting the other view.

In a situation when the MMA’s house stands divided on the question of resignations and decisions are to be made by a majority vote, it appears that the central general council may not support the idea of quitting assemblies. According to a member of the MMA’s supreme council, a big majority of MNAs and MPAs, particularly from the NWFP and Balochistan, do not want to resign and they include legislators belonging to the Jamaat-i-Islami. Moreover, the JI Shoora which met in Lahore last week reportedly also softened its position on quitting the assemblies.