PESHAWAR - To strengthen and formally mobilise the electoral alliance of religious parties - Muttahida Majlis-e-Aml, a meeting of the Provincial General Council of the alliance will be held on February 15 so as to reorganise the alliance prior to the forthcoming general elections in the country.
Though the MMA has been revived at the provincial level in the last week of December 2017, however, it has yet to have an organised structure in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Therefore, the provincial leadership of the parties that are part of the religious alliance has announced to meet on February 15 so as to reorganize the MMA.
In this regard, the MMA’s Provincial General Council will meet in the provincial capital on February 15 to discuss a number of core issues including the reorganization of the alliance and formally inviting other religious parties to join the MMA.
Having four members each from all the five-member parties of the MMA, it would be the very first meeting of the alliance after the revival of the MMA.
Sources said that in the same meeting, the issue of JI and JUI-F, the main two parties that are nowadays part of the PTI provincial government in the KP and of the central government led by the PML-N respectively, would also be taken up.
Time and again the JI and JUI-F had claimed that they would end their allied governments once the top leadership of the alliance instructs them. The MMA would contest coming polls on one electoral symbol, had previously ruled the KP and also been part of Baluchistan in the aftermath of 2002 elections.
Though the MMA which has been revived sans-JUI-S of Maulana Sami-ul Haq, has mostly following in KP and Balochistan, it is crystal clear that Punjab is the real battlefield for 2018 general elections.
This time again, the MMA would try its luck by fielding candidates from across the province. At present, the alliance is working on a new manifesto and also seriously thinking to approach and bring more likeminded parties into the fold, sources in the alliance informed.
To pacify Maulana Samiul Haq to bring him back to the MMA, they informed that a jirga had been sent to him and they were hoping for the best. Maulana Sami-ul-Haq has formed an electoral alliance with the ruling PTI for jointly contesting the coming polls as the JUI-S is considering the PTI much more better than the new MMA, which is now led by the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.