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 of October 2002 in order to concentrate the forces of the Islamists. Your Jamiat Ulema include the -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 ) to.

After the death of Maulana Noorani ( JUP ) in December 2003 is the Qazi Hussein Ahmed moderate (JI ) leader of MMA today. Other important politicians are Samiul Haq and Fazlur Rehman of the two factions of the JUI. The Ahl -e- Hadith was also among the founding members, but it has left the coalition in August 2002.

Otherwise, the alliance of the five remaining parties has proven to be stable. This is all the more surprising as it combines different parties of religious and political orientation. So it includes the JUI and JUP of traditional Sunni scholars parties of the Deobandi and Barelwi of the school, with the JI modern Sunni lay Party and the TJP a major Shiite party. This is remarkable, because in the 1980's Sunnis and Shiites in Pakistan have delivered a bloody civil war. As recently as the 1990s, the military wing of JUI and TJP have bitterly opposed.

The fragmentation of the Islamists had always prevented that they could exploit the full potential of their electorate. Although they reached in the elections to the National Assembly and the Provincial Assemblies in October 2002 with 11 percent only slightly more votes than in previous elections. But thanks to the electoral alliance, this time struck down voting share in the distribution of seats. Thus, the MMA in the National Assembly 53 of the 342 seats in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP ), with 62 of the 123 seats in Balochistan and 17 of the 64 seats. It is therefore in the NWFP government and is involved in Balochistan it.

Measures

In the NWFP, the MMA has with the adoption of a law that declared Sharia law as the basis of legislation, the establishment of a Commission of the education and business with Islam is to reconcile, and the prohibition of alcohol, music and billboards important steps to Islamization of politics and society made ​​. With the enforcement of prayer times and dress code by a newly established religious police has initiated further action to " Talibanization " of the province. The JUI, which dominates the government in the NWFP, anyway ranks as one of the most important allies of the Taliban, which it is connected by a common political-religious ideology. It is therefore not entirely coincidental that the NWFP has become the main collection area and retreat of the Taliban.

At the national level but not the JUI determines the policies of the MMA, but the more modern and more moderate JI. Consequently, their policy is characterized on the one hand by the sharp criticism of the pro-American and authoritarian course of President Pervez Musharraf from the other by the clandestine cooperation with the military. So she agreed in 2003 to amend the Constitution, which allowed the President to legalize his position. But Musharraf's attitude towards the Islamists is not consistently one hand, it is urged by the U.S. to fight the radical parties and their related terrorist groups, on the other hand he needs the Islamists as a counterweight to the major democratic parties, which call for a return to democracy. Therefore, is also on his side a double strategy of public criticism and secret cooperation.