ISLAMABAD: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) secretary general Liaquat Baloch has said that the MMA’s central parliamentary board will meet in Islamabad on Tuesday and Wednesday to finalise candidates for the July 25 general elections.

Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, he claimed that the constituent parties of the newly-formed religious alliance had successfully resolved their disputes over distribution of the tickets. Most of the disputes had been resolved at the district level whereas the remaining issues were settled by the provincial leadership, he added.

“All obstacles in the way of elections had been removed and the apprehensions of delay have died out,” he clai­med, without identifying the “obstacles”, saying there was no need to highlight an issue that had already been settled.

Mr Baloch, who is also Secretary General of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), said the provincial parliamentary boards of the MMA had already finalised their recommendations and the lists of priority candidates for the reserved seats of women and minorities would be submitted on Monday. On June 12 and 13, he said, the central parliamentary board of the MMA would take a final decision about the candidates for national and provincial assemblies.

Says disputes over distribution of tickets among constituent parties resolved

In reply to a question, he said all the parties had agreed to a formula and criteria for awarding the party tickets. He said an honest and committed leadership was needed for holding fair and free elections, for across-the-board accountability and for running the country in line with the Constitution.

The six-party MMA — an alliance of religio-political parties that had emerged on the country’s political horizon by contesting the 2002 general elections — was revived in December last year. However, it has now been reduced to five parties as the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) is not part of the alliance.

Its constituent parties now are: the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F, JI, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, Jamiat Ahle Hadith and Tehreek-i-Islami.

Meanwhile, speaking to the party workers and activists at an Iftar dinner, Liaqat Baloch urged the voters to change their mindset in order to protect their self-respect, to strengthen the democratic setup and to get rid of the traditional politicians who had been tested and tried many a time and had been proved useless.

The MMA leader said the enforcement of Nizam-i-Mustafa was the need of the hour for the solidarity of Pakistan and also for steering the Muslim world out of its numerous crises. He said the traditional politics and political parties protecting the interests of the so-called ‘electables’ and secular elements had failed and nothing could be expected from them. He said the MMA would field honest, dedicated and Islamic-minded candidates in the elections.

Earlier, JI chief Senator Sirajul Haq indirectly citicised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for awarding most of the party tickets to turncoats.

“The country seems to be heading towards ‘Lotacracy’ instead of democracy which is a matter of deep concern,” Mr Haq said in a statement issued by the JI Media Centre after his meeting with Liaqat Baloch and JI Punjab chief Mian Maqsood Ahmed.

Mr Haq said the selection of the candidates reflected the vision of the parties and a look at their (PTI’s) selection did not show that they desired a change in the country. However, he said, it was a happy sign that the general public had accepted the MMA as an alternative leadership.

He said the issuance of tickets by the parties seemed to have made the masses understand that the wellbeing of the country and the masses was not on their agenda and they simply wanted to reach the corridors of power. He said the people who had destroyed state institutions and plundered public money and transferred ill-gotten wealth to foreign lands had again been successful in securing parties’ tickets.

In the meeting, the JI leaders reviewed the MMA candidates in Punjab. Mian Maqsood Ahmed briefed Senator Haq about the JI candidates from the province The JI chief said the trend of the caretaker governments was not clear so far but he hoped that during their brief tenure they would set an example of good governance.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2018