MMA coalition partners to quit other alliances

Parties of the revived religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal is set to leave the existing individual party alliances with the central and provincial governments in order to adopt a future line of action. Jamaat-e-Islami politician Dr Farid Piracha told Business Recorder that leaders of the five parties remaining in the alliance (barring the sixth, the Jamiatul Ulema-i-Islam of Maulana Samiullah) will meet in a few days to deliberate on their future line of action.
Piracha hinted at the possibility of parting ways with the Pakistan Tehrik-Insaaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is a thorn in the side of Maulana Fazlur Rehman's Jamiatul Ulemai-Islam (F) since it joined the present government in 2013. The MMA leadership will make a decision soon in this regard at the coming meeting.
Informed sources told Business Recorder that a meeting of the alliance is going to be convened in the second week of February. About speculations on the meeting between Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in Lahore on Friday, he said it was a routine meeting. Politicians and political parties remain in contact with each other, he added.
"We don't have any concerns on that meeting," Piracha said. Besides the Jamaat-e-Islami itself, the revived alliance consists of the JUI-F, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan of the late Shah Ahmad Noorani, the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith and Islami Tehreek, also known as Shia Ulema Council.
The alliance has proposed the name of Maulana Fazlur Rehman as its president. The name of Jamaat heavy-weight Liaqat Baloch has been proposed for the position of secretary general. A JUP candidate is also in the run for the post. The sources also said the MMA secretary general will be announced at the first meeting of the alliance. When the MMA was first formed in 2002, it did unexpectedly well and emerged as the third major force with 59 seats in the National Assembly; and formed its own government in the former North-West Frontier Province and at the same time was a coalition partner of the PML-Q in Balochistan. Political observers speculated at that time that the MMA's victory in the 2002 elections was engineered by Pervez Musharraf, who did not want Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) sweeping the elections. Senator Hafiz Hamdullah of the JUI-F told Business Recorder that the agenda of the alliance is to contest the upcoming elections from a united platform and continue the struggle for justice, rule of law in accordance with Islamic laws.
Asked whether the MMA will move against the PTI's government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said that it would be premature to say anything with certainty at this stage, About the JUI-F's alliance with the PML-N at the Centre, he said that his party would abide by any decision taken by a leadership meeting to be held in the coming few days.