Editorial by the writer, published in The News, Nov. 18, 2006

Calling the MMA’s bluff

Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the marriage of convenience, as some would have argued and said, between the current government and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal is in tatters following the momentous passage of the Women’s Protection Bill by the National Assembly this week. The government -- presumably it all must lead back to President Musharraf himself -- has called the MMA’s bluff and the six-party religious alliance’s response has been found wanting. Many have been left wondering why the MMA chose not to come good on its oft-repeated threat of resigning en masse if parliament were to pass the bill amending the Hudood Ordinance without incorporating the recommendations suggested by an ulema committee. Instead of doing that promptly, the MMA has come up with a novel decision. It announced on Thursday that the decision to resign from the National Assembly had been made but will be implemented in early December which raises several questions. Why the time lag and is this now going to be used by the alliance to get concessions from the government? In this, perhaps the MMA thinks that those in the PML-Q who are closer to it ideologically -- and we all know who they are -- may come out and help it in this matter.

Whatever the real reasons for such a ’decision’ to resign, it would make most laypeople think that the alliance is all rhetoric and no action, because it failed to come good on its earlier pledge. Maybe to escape this censure, one MMA MNA has publicly said that he has resigned. Also, the announcement to quit from the lower house but in a few weeks time seems to reflect a certain lack of unanimity in the six-party alliance. Television footage indicated this on the very day the bill was passed. The JI chief, who is also the alliance’s president, stormed out of parliament leaving his erstwhile JUI chief, who also happens to be the leader of the opposition, to speak curtly to journalists bent on getting an answer to the obvious question: ’When will the MMA resign, as it said it would?’ Then, on the day of the announcement -- Thursday -- it seemed as if the two gentlemen were not in agreement over the resignation decision though publicly the MMA insists there is no dissension or disunity in its ranks.

One hopes that the MMA can see the irony in its predicament, for which it needs to blame only itself. The alliance took what it believed to be the moral high ground on the issue of changing the Hudood laws (of course many others would see opposition to amending a terrible law as anything but ’moral’) but has negated that stand by refusing to abide by its pledge to resign. In anything, the dilly-dallying means that (a) the moral high ground is forever lost to the MMA and (b) that religious parties are just like any mainstream political party in that the attractions of power and privilege are sometimes so strong that a compromise on one’s principles is all but unavoidable. The issue of resignations aside, opposition to the bill’s passage does not present some of the parties in a particularly good light either. With the MMA one at least knew where the religious parties stood on the bill and there were no surprises. One is referring here to the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf because their opposition to what can only be seen as welcome and much-needed legislation paints these parties as ideological bedfellows of the MMA.