| From the Dept. of It's About Time |
In Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Islamists are rallying the vote for another shot at power. At a campaign meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) Party in the city of Mardan, zealous seminary students and older men with beards and turbans fill the chairs. They wave the party's black and white striped flags and chant slogans with fervour.
Five years ago, Islamist parties rode to victory on a wave of opposition to America's invasion of Afghanistan. They swept the board in Mardan, capturing power in this province and sharing it in another. Now they're defending their record.
"They were saying that these clerics can't rule," says Shujaul Mulk, a JUI Member of Parliament from Mardan, "but we have shown how we can run the government. There was fiscal discipline, and we also did a lot to try and enforce Sharia." |