Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided not to extend its alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami in the next general elections as the latter has already entered into an alliance with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) under the umbrella of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
PTI spokesman for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Shaukat Ali Yousafzai told Business Recorder that PTI's alliance with the JI will end with the dissolution of the current assemblies. He said that the day MMA was revived, the possibility of entering into an alliance came to an 'end' forever.
"There is no possibility whatsoever of entering into any alliance with the JI in the upcoming elections as the arrangement was only for the current tenure which will end on May 31," he added.
He said that the alliance will remain intact till the formation of the caretaker provincial government, adding the JI has already found its "lost love" in Maulana Fazlur Rehman, "who best suits JI."
The differences between the two allied political parties turned sour after JI chief Sirajul Haq accused the PTI of voting for Balochistan's candidate on the orders of "hidden powers" in last month's election for Senate chairman.
The accusation by JI chief angered top PTI leadership and party spokesman Fawad Chaudhry demanded JI chief Sirajul Haq to end the alliance with the PTI immediately if he does not agree with PTI's policies. He also reminded him not to forget that he made his way to the Senate with the support of the PTI.
Terming JIs' politics as 'strange', he said that Sirajul Haq went to Supreme Court against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case but now has virtually entered into an election alliance with the PML-N through MMA for 2018 elections.
The MMA, an alliance of five religious political parties, first set up during General Musharraf's regime in 2002, ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2002 to 2007 before it became dormant after developing internal rifts. In the 2008 and 2013 polls, the MMA constituents could not win enough support to form a government.
This year in March, the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, managed to revive the defunct religious parties' alliance in a bid to counter the growing popularity of the PTI in the province.
To counter the move, the PTI has won over another hardline cleric and chief of his own faction Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) Maulana Samiul Haq, a rival of both JI and JUI-F. The JUI-S chief has already announced an electoral alliance with PTI.
Shaukat Yousufzai said that his party feels no threat from the MMA given its 'extraordinary' performance during the last five years; and added that no party except PTI will form the government for another term, given its popularity in KPK.
Yousafzai said the PTI enjoyed overwhelming support in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, adding the PTI is not afraid of any alliance. He said that after their rejection by the masses in the previous two elections, now these religio-political parties were trying to get together ahead of the next polls, with the misconception that they would be able to perform better than in the previous polls.
JI senior leader Dr Fareed Piracha said, "The alliance of the religious political parties is not against anybody as we have entered into an electoral alliance just to intact the votes of the religious parties."
"We have done in 2002, and this time again, if people voted to the MMA, we will leave no stone unturned in serving the masses," he added.
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