Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA, United Action Front) is an alliance of Islamist parties in Pakistan .
structure
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal is an alliance of the five most important Islamist parties in Pakistan. It was founded in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in October 2002 to pool the forces of the Islamists. It includes the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman) (JUI-F), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Samiul Haq) (JUI-S), the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Jamyat-e Ulema-e Pakistan (JUP) and the Tahrik-e Jaffariya-e Pakistan (TJP).
After the death of Maulana Noorani (JUP) in December 2003, the moderate Qazi Hussein Ahmed (JI) is now the leader of the MMA. Other important politicians are Samiul Haq and Fazlur Rehman of the two groups in the JUI. The Ahl-e-Hadith was also one of the founding members, but it left the electoral alliance in August 2002.
Otherwise, the alliance of the five remaining parties has proven to be stable. This is all the more surprising since it unites parties with different religious and political orientations. With the JUI and the JUP, it comprises traditional Sunni scholar parties of the Deobandi and Barelwi schools, with the JI a modern Sunni lay party and with the TJP an important Shiite party. This is noteworthy as Sunnis and Shiites fought a bloody civil war in Pakistan in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the military wings of the JUI and TJP fought bitterly.
elections
The fragmentation of the Islamists had always prevented them from reaching the full potential of their electorate. In the elections to the National Assembly and the provincial parliaments in October 2002, they achieved 11 percent, only marginally more votes than in previous elections. But thanks to the electoral alliance, this share of the vote was reflected in the distribution of seats this time. The MMA achieved 53 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly, 62 of the 123 seats in the Northwest Province (NWFP) and 17 of the 64 seats in Balochistan . It is therefore the government in the NWFP and is involved in Balochistan.
activities
In the NWFP, the MMA has taken important steps with the passage of a law that made Sharia law the basis of legislation, the establishment of a commission to bring education and the economy in line with Islam , and the ban on alcohol, music and billboards Islamization of politics and society undertaken. With the enforcement of prayer times and dress codes by a newly founded religious police , it has initiated further measures to “ Talibanize ” the province. The JUI, which dominates the government in the NWFP, is already one of the Taliban's most important allies, to whom it is bound by a common political and religious worldview. It is therefore not entirely by chance that the NWFP has become the Taliban's most important gathering area and retreat.
At the national level, however, it is not the JUI that determines the policy of the MMA, but the more modern and moderate JI. Their policies are characterized on the one hand by the sharp criticism of the pro-American and authoritarian course of President Pervez Musharraf , on the other hand by the secret cooperation with the military . In 2003, she voted for an amendment to the constitution that allowed the president to legalize his position. But Musharraf's stance towards the Islamists was also inconsistent: on the one hand, he was urged by the USA to fight the radical parties and the terrorist groups close to them , on the other hand, he needed the Islamists as a counterweight to the large democratic parties that are demanding a return to democracy . Therefore, a double strategy of public criticism and secret cooperation was found on his side.
literature
- Ansar, Zafar Afaq / Moten, Abdul Rashid: From Crisis to Crisis: Musharrafs Personal Rule and the 2002 Elections in Pakistan , in: The Muslim World, 2003, July / October
- Nasr, Vali Reza: Military Rule, Islamism and the Democracy in Pakistan , in: Middle East Journal, 2004, Spring
- Reetz, Dietrich: President Musharraf and institutional Islam - break, reform or continuity , in: Ebert, Hanstein (Ed.): Contributions to Islamic Law III, Frankfurt, 2003
- von Schwerin, Ulrich: The Muttahida Majlis-e Amal - Causes of the Islamists' election success in the Pakistani elections in October 2002 , in: Asia, October 2005