As on the one hand the general elections are just around the corner at the other the agencies have split the MMA at the behest of the foreign powers. Qazi Hussain Ahmed along with the lawyers community is seen addressing all the bar associations across the country while at the other end Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) Chief Maulana Samiul Haq at the end of the two day long meeting of the Majlis-e-Shura of the JUI have announced to boycott the elections. This decision has taken the political and religious circles by surprise.
His decision to boycott the polls has made Maulana Fazlur Rehman a controversial figure. The religious parties have further broken up into factions. At the moment it looks impossible that Maulana Fazlur Rehman will withdraw from his decision to contest elections. He does know that millions of the voters of the Jamaat-e-Islami are not going to favour him. There is an impression that Maulana Fazlur Rehman has struck some sort of a deal with President Musharraf and that they have issued a list to the government for the provincial as well as the national assemblies to help their candidates win.
These speculations are cemented further by the fact that after differences surfaced between Benazir Bhutto and him over seat adjustments issue. Maulana later gave an indication of a possibility of his party striking an understanding with the Q-league.
Qazi Hussain Ahmed has appealed the public not to vote Maulana Fazlur Rehman as he is the culprit behind the controversial 17th amendment and that he has duped the nation. Apparently the All Parties Democratic Movement is no more an alliance. On the other hand the mass contact campaign that Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan and Mahmood Khan Achakzai have launched hints that after the release of President Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan a long struggle will start. The lawyers will stand up with increased vigor against this old ‘democratic system’ and will form a new lawyers mates party that will be headed by the deposed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and if this happened people will leave PML-Q, PML-N or PPP just to march under the banner of the lawyers. This will possibly lead to real elections.
Now the question is how the lawyers will formulate a strategy for the sake of reinstatement of judges and getting them released from house arrests.
At present it seems that without the reinstatement of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry the situation will not normalize in the country. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry remained one of the few judges in the history of the country who took extraordinary decisions. It is next to impossible that the general public will forget those steps and will be herded behind the PPP or PML politicians.
If President Musharraf would have reinstated the judges of the superior judiciary along with the lifting of emergency public would have appreciated such a move.
At the political end the JUI-F leader Maulana Fazl didn’t play any effective role in order to secure his alliance.
The maulana has lost a lot of his standing amongst the masses due to the fact that he has been tagged as the B team of the government for the past five years. The chief of his own faction of JUI knows that he won’t be able to win the elections. The things have turned so poor for the maulana that there are doubts of him winning the elections from his own constituency.
The maulana after reading the writing on the wall tried to strike a seat to seat adjustment with the PPP. But the PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto categorically refused to form an alliance with any religious party or the Q-league. This left Maulana Fazl and his party men in an embarrassing position. If in the past five years the JUI-F would have taken a clear cut stand they would not have to face the embarrassment that they are facing now. Neither would they have to depend upon the support of the government or any agencies.
It is important that Maulana Fazlur Rehman realize that there is no one he can blame for the damage to his reputation than himself. He has left questions marks on his political character.
After the boycott decision by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) the JI voters will never support JUI-F rather their sympathies will be in favour of Mian Nawaz Sharif.