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| India-Pakistan |
| Fazl for PM? |
| 2002-10-16 |
| Pakistanâs newly powerful Islamic partiesâ alliance will demand that pro-Taliban scholar Maulana Fazlur Rehman be made prime minister if they enter into a coalition to form government, an alliance leader said Tuesday, October 15. Boy, squirting hot coffee out your nose really hurts! Just a sec, while I change keyboards... âIf the MMA decides to join the government, then our prime minister will be Maulana Fazlur Rehman and we will support him,â said Qazi Hussein Ahmed, vice president of the Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. For the longest time, I thought it was Fazl who was pulling Qazi's strings. Now it appears it's Qazi who's pulling Fazl's. Just goes to show what I know... Ahmed, who heads the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), one of six parties in the MMA, made the comment after talks with a leader of the pro-government Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q). The PML-Q has been seeking to coax the MMA into a coalition to capture the majority needed to form government. PML-Q executive Chaudry Shujaat Hussain met Ahmed at his residence ahead of an all-important meeting of MMA leaders to debate coalition options. âWe will chalk out our plans to form government at the MMA meeting and we will announce our decision after this meeting,â Hussain told reporters at his residence. Qazi really does expect to be in charge with his 45 seats... Maulana Fazlur Rehman heads the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party, known for its close ties to Afghanistanâs ousted Taliban regime. Really close ties, in fact... However, speaking to IslamOnline, Musbahullah Abdul Baqi, a political analyst in Afghanistan said that he has doubts that reports of Fazlur Rehman's nomination for Prime Minister is true. He said that the number of chairs which the Islamic coalition has does not qualify them to nominate someone for the Prime Minister position. "I expect that they will instead be on the oppositions' seats in the national council," he said. 45 seats is a lot, but it's not all of them... He added however, that while Fazlur Rehman was pro-Taliban, he was also active during Benazir Bhutto's government, and that he is not an "extremist" but is flexible and is open to the requirements of the time. "He is what you would call a 'traditional' scholar who understand the requirements of the time we live in," he said. Fazl is "moderate" in comparison to Qazi, perhaps, and maybe in comparison to Sami. I can't think of many people he's more "moderate" than... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #3 I made the same mistake only ten months ago. Fazl didn't sign the fatwa - he had his JUI-F party secretary do it. |
| Posted by: Fred 2002-10-17 08:19:30 |
| #2 Oops; upon further checking it was Fazlur Rehman Khalil who signed the Fatwa, who is a different person to Fazlur Rehman. |
| Posted by: Paul 2002-10-17 04:40:20 |
| #1 This is the same Fazl who signed Bin Ladins Fatwa in 1998 stating that it was permissible to kill Americans, civilian and military, whereever you can find them. In short he would be the perfect Prime Minister of Pakistan. |
| Posted by: Paul 2002-10-17 04:29:25 |