Sirajul Haq
Desperate for a revival
By Zaigham Khan
Sirajul Haq is Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba's third student leader to head the JI. The 55-year-old is also JI’s second leader to hail from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which became an important province for the party's emerging leadership partly due to the relevance of its location in relation to the Afghan Jihad.
Haq's greatest liability is the period of leadership of his predecessor Munawar Hasan, who was voted out of the party’s leadership in 2014 after a five-year-long stint. Hasan’s open support for militancy and the Taliban did immense harm to the JI's reputation and eroded its popularity.
As opposed to Hasan, Haq has tried to emulate the populist style of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the JI chief who kept the party at the centre of the political arena between 1987-2009.
Though Haq is intelligent, eloquent and energetic, he has been largely unsuccessful in reviving the party. His failure on this front is particularly obvious in the case of Karachi, a city that the JI has always tried to win back from the MQM.
For the 2018 election, JI has joined the MMA reluctantly, knowing that its options may be limited. JI’s leaders were initially hesitant to join MMA because they fear JUI-F, the dominant party in the alliance, and its leader Fazlur Rehman, who has outmanoeuvred the Jamaat before.
Though Haq may be dreaming of a repeat of the MMA’s success in the 2002 elections, the most he can hope for is for his party to win a few more votes than it did in 2013.