LAHORE: Responding to the impression that the Mutthida Majlas-i-Amal (MMA) is yet to jell as an alliance as candidates of all five component parties are campaigning for election from their own party platforms, Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq sees no problem with it nor fears any impact on the election results.

“The alliance is still in the process of finalizing tickets. Since all aspirants belonging to different component parties are out campaigning from their own party platforms, this does give an impression that the MMA is still to emerge as an alliance, or the parties are working on cross purposes,” he told Dawn.

Siraj believes once the tickets are finalised, which may take another week or so when the supreme council of the alliance meets after Eid to thrash out all intra-party differences on tickets distribution, the situation will resolve quickly.

However, he concedes that all is not well on the tickets front. “Even the individual parties are struggling to achieve the consensus, whereas the MMA is a five-party alliance, with all parties having their own electoral calculations, aspirations and targets. “Synchronizing them all is an uphill task and being worked around.”

“There are some issues in KPK and Balochistan as far as ticket distribution is concerned, which could not be solved at the levels of district, provincial and central parliamentary boards. They will now be taken up by the supreme council after the Eid. It should not be an issue given the spirit with which the entire central leadership of the alliance is working. Though there is cushion to solve the matter till June 28, when the final withdrawal of the paper has to take place, the final MMA list will be put up much earlier,” he hoped.

Siraj also insisted that the MMA was neither entering into an alliance with any other party at provincial nor at national level. “As you see, the alliance has been struggling with its own ticket distribution. How can it, at this stage, engage another party to further compromise the process by involving yet another party or alliance at this stage? Once the ticketing process is complete, one cannot rule out local arrangements between, or among, candidates,” he says.

About his own contesting from two constituencies, he said that he was facing local pressure from the NA-23 (Charsadda) voters to contest against a powerful old-timer Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao. “Since the constituency includes Shabqadar area, my place of birth, the pressure only got doubled. The voters in the area are sick of family politics of Maliks/Khans (traditional tribal elders) and want some change and this was the reason for pressing me to contest from there. I have got the nomination papers but the final decision would naturally be taken by the supreme council of the alliance.”

About NA-7 (Dir), where one of his own party fellow has submitted his nomination papers against his party amir and created some embarrassment, he said that the problems has been taken care of. “I went to meet the gentleman and convinced him to withdraw his candidature and he did. But still, another candidate, who is also a party (JI) man, is contesting for the provincial seat under the same National Assembly constituency. He is also being engaged in discussions to make him pull out of the contest and he, hopefully, would also follow the suit.

The newly revived five-party alliance includes Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazlur Rehman Group (JUI-F), the Jamaat-i- Islami (JI), the Jamiat Ahle Hadith (JAH), Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (Noorani group) and the Tehreek-i-Islami (TI), with JUI-F and JI being the major components.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2018