LAHORE, July 14: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal will emerge as a strong party in the October polls but the victory could not guarantee a big change (in government and society), Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Husain Ahmad said on Sunday.

Talking to Dawn here, he declined to give the number of seat the MMA could possibly win in the elections.

He said meagre financial resources and vast personal contacts of the feudal lords were the main hurdles in landslide victory of the six-party alliance.

He also believed that the PML(N) and the PPP were not ideological parties and only political groups. The two (parties) would be fragmented only if Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto were removed from their top offices.

The Qazi said though he did not see a landslide victory for the MMA, it would win considerable number of seats in the elections because of certain factors, including the first such electoral alliance of all religious schools of thought and an anti-US wave prevailing in the country.

He also said that the feudal lords were losing control in their traditional constituencies. Now there were few such areas where they held sway due to their family background or influence.

These feudal lords, he said, had seized the people with the help of police, patwari and district administration.

The JI amir believed that the MMA had the biggest street power than the PPP or the PML(N). The alliance was also capable to mobilize the people, while Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto cannot bring the people on roads.

But, he claimed, the MMA could motivate the people with a little planning and preparations, admitting that the motivation was not enough to win the polls.

“Personal contacts and funds are required to approach and mobilize the people. A reasonable sum of money is also required to meet at least genuine demands of the people, specially on the polling day. But the MMA does not have the resources to bear this burden,” the Qazi said.

He believed that the two shortcomings were the main hurdles in the landslide victory of religious parties.

“Other parties serve meals, erect camps and provide transport (to voters) on the polling day despite a ban by the Election Commission. So it might not be a landslide victory for the MMA on that day but it would at least emerge as a big (parliamentary) party.”

He also said that mosque had never figured in the past elections. If prayer leaders who enjoyed support at grass roots level, were mobilized with the help of the Jamaat’s organized force the resonance produced could jolt down ‘big bridges’ and ‘towering buildings.’

The Jamaat amir said the forming of an electoral alliance by the religious parties for the first time in the country’s history would also leave a positive impact on the voters.

“Earlier, the people had been objecting that why these parties were not sitting together. This objection has now been removed.

“The theme that people look towards Maulvi in religious matters but on political issues they choose other people, had been propagated in Iran. As a result, not more than two to three religious scholars could reach Iranian parliament. But when they were mobilized by the ‘real leadership’, the same people granted them a thumping majority.”

Denying that there were any differences among the MMA ranks, he said the alliance was being run more smoothly than any other political party. All its central and provincial offices had been filled harmoniously. Its constitution and manifesto had also been prepared unanimously.

There were alliances formed on one-point agenda, but the Majlis had been formed on a detailed financial, political and administrative programme.

“I firmly believe that these parties are united and will remain so in future,” Qazi Husain said.

The important stage was preparation of lists for, what he said, complicated election system for reserved seats in the National Assembly and Senate as well as in the four provincial assemblies.

An unanimous formula for the reserved seats would be prepared by August, he said. What required was allocation of more time by the constituents’ top leaders for the purpose as such matters could not be solved at lower tiers, he added.

“In the past, the forces against religious parties had, in response to the demand for implementation of Shariat, been jeering that whose fiqah would be enforced. But all religious schools of thought are now united and agreed that the recommendations of the Council of Islamic Ideology should be implemented,” he said.

The anti-exploitation system slogan would figure in the alliance’s campaign which, he said, would become an anti-America voice.

Qazi Husain said the MMA was being led by a revolutionary leadership that represented the middle class, badly hit by the continuing price hike and inflation. The feeling emerging among the religious scholars, who were the poorest stratum of society, that ‘the haves’ had been propagating against them that they were unable to lead the nation would work wonders in mobilizing the people with deep roots.

Admitting that the MMA was not strong enough to sail through elections alone, he said adjustments would be made with other parties. But only at few seats.

Justifying the decision to make minimum adjustments, he said every party wanted to bag maximum votes to attain more share in the seats reserved for women and technocrats, almost one third of the total seats.

“MMA’s votes are in every constituency and we don’t want to lose them when comes the stage for deciding reserved seats on proportional representation basis.”

Asked why the MMA constituents were individually holding meetings with other politicians, Qazi Husain said there was nothing wrong with it as the Majlis leaders had allowed the move. However, a decision to strike any deal with other parties would be taken unanimously, he said without elaborating the factors that could become the basis for any such alliance.

Asked how the MMA would frame its working relationship with the President-cum-COAS in case its own nominee or a candidate backed by it becomes the prime minister, he said it depended much on the environment outside parliament, on mood of the masses and the person himself.

If the nation were not ready to accept the dictator and the would-be prime minister had confidence in his own person, then the president would have to compromise, he said.

The actual situation would become clear after the assemblies come into being, he added.

Asked if the Constitution needed amendments to meet the present day requirements, he categorically said ‘no’.

He contradicted his own stance by saying that the JI had, in its manifesto, been demanding increase in parliament’s seats, reducing its tenure from five to four years and introducing proportional representation.

He said it was not lawful for an individual to amend the Constitution. Nominating and sacking the prime minister and chief ministers, dissolving parliament and forming the National Security Council were against the spirit of the federal parliamentary system and a violation of the Supreme Court verdict.

These amendments would change the basic character of the Constitution and reduce the office of the prime minister to mere a rubber stamp.

The clause to sack the prime minister only would convert the National Assembly into a den for hatching conspiracies as the prime minister would always be facing a hanging sword, the JI amir said. The system had been in vogue in France and consequently the prime minister could not work beyond three months.

Asked if offering an olive branch to the PPP and the PML(N) would amount to saying goodbye to the ideological politics of the Jamaat, the Qazi said he did not believe that the two were ideological political parties. The two parties were political groups which, he said, were facing a bleak future in the absence of their top leaders.