Fragmented, outflanked by young militants and politically compromised, Pakistan’s mainstream Islamist leaders have only a side role to play in the crisis engulfing the country, analysts say. Since President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule, the outcry has been led at home by ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, lawyers and rights groups, and abroad by the US.That, says Farzana Shaikh, an expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, is due to a “deeply-rooted confusion” over the role of Islam in public life since Pakistan’s creation. When independence came, “there was no clear consensus on whether Pakistan was meant to be a state for Muslims, or whether it was to be a state governed by Islamic law,” she said.
The mullahs have been influential in the past, forcing BhuttoÂ’s father in the 1970s to ban alcohol and declare Friday prayer day a holiday; helping oust him in 1977; and mobilising mass protests in 2001 against the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Analysts point to three key reasons why religious parties are not so influential this time.
- They are hopelessly divided – there is an Islamic fundamentalist alliance called the MMA, but its two biggest parties cannot even agree whether to take part in January 8 elections.
- They have a long association with previous military regimes, notably when Pakistan backed AfghanistanÂ’s mujahedin and the Taliban.
- And they are losing influence to battle-hardened militants in Pashtun-dominated Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.
In 2002, when Musharraf needed electoral support, he was supported by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman favours taking part in the polls. But while the JUI has more clerics in its fold than the other main Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, its style – playing big-time politics, sending women to parliament, among others – “has alienated many people who want them to stick to their role as mullahs,” said analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai. “Like the secular opposition,” said Chatham House’s Shaikh, “the religious right is deeply fragmented.
In Balochistan and the Tribal Areas meanwhile, those now holding sway are young commanders with experience in Afghanistan. “They are calling all the shots. They are willing to make sacrifices. They have hundreds of fighters. They have weapons and resources,” Yusufzai said.