MMA Resignation Dramas

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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No matter what good or bad befalls our country and people, the MMA, or those who defame the word “mullah”, always have one antic to pull. Threaten (or so they think) with talk of their resignations from parliament. This has gone on since 2002, and every 6 months they are just about to do so over one dispute or another. Now of course it’s the Women’s Rights Bill, which they for some reason only known to them, call Un-Islamic, but refuse to state exactly how.

The Hafiz Hussain Ahmed announced on ARY while talking to Dr Shahid Masood and Dr Sherfgan Niazi that he has submitted his resignation in protest (conveniently) to Fazal and Qazi, and not directly to the Speaker. Because had he given it to the speaker, hafiz saab would have really been out of parliament, but that’s never what he wants you see, so he plays smart.

Hafiz Hussain announces resignation
http://dawn.com/2006/11/17/top4.htm

MMA to ‘resign’ in December
http://dawn.com/2006/11/17/top3.htm

Meanwhile the entire MMA top brass (read beards), decided they’d all resign alright, but not now, in December! :smack:
Let’s see where this ends and how this new drama unfolds…

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Yah I want to know how it is unislamic...they should educate all the muslim scholars of the world.

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They aren't educated themselves! Sadly 90% of Mullah's are frauds.

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While the MMA are running to resign and the reason they are giving it that the passed bill is not Islamic. So if that is the case why don’t they spill out exactly how they the passed bill is not Islamic. Or is it just politics? Is it just opposition for the sake of opposition?
I mean the government says that this law is against the women. They prove it by saying that a women who comes to report for rape has to bring in 4 witness and if she is unable to do so then she can be tried for adultery. This obviously is wrong and so Now this makes sense even to me.

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HZ, what if MMA members resign in reality?

I am not very sure, but according to the bill, the issue of adultery will not be handled by Sharriat Court,the FIR wil not lodged against the adultery. Moreover the production of four witnesses is according to Islam,
So apparently it is not only unislamic but a free rein to adulterer/aldultress.

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If MMA resigns, it would be nice. They should do that sooner the better. Hope that they resign by end of this year and present government uses the opportunity to do proper but fair politics.

Government would hold by-election by end of March (Government by constitution need to hold by-election within 90 days). By-election would give more seats to the government (and their coalition partners) increasing already majority seats they are holding in Parliament.

After election, government should declare unusual circumstances and ask President to extend the Parliament time by a year (that they can do under the constitution). I am sure President would oblige. Thus, present assembly period would extend to October 2008 and next general election would happen in January 2009 (90 days after assembly time expires in October).

This would give Present government two years of complete control over the parliament. Government would also going to have control in senate (where government is in majority) and all four provinces (hoping MMA resigns from there too), giving Government good opportunity to do what they like, as they like.

It is possible (rather most likely) that this opportunity will even give the government two-third majority in Parliament needed to change constitution, and thus they would be able to change the constitution, as they would like, without any problem or opposition (that would be democratically legal too).

I am sure that MMA out of parliament, out of power anywhere in Pakistan, would deteriorate very fast, though they are already deteriorating.

It seem that MMA is in illusion that they would resign and then government would not go for by-election as new members would only going to be in Parliament for 6 months. Thus, they are expecting that their resignation would push the government to call for election.

Though that would be no problem as many in government wants that too. Government is expecting to win next election, because government (especially President Musharraf) feels they are much more popular and stronger then 2002 election, and even in that election, they eventually got the majority. Still, if government would like to have this parliament complete their term, a new thing in Pakistan, they have the option, as mentioned above.

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The MMA is 70% JUI (F) of Fazlur Rehman, and I don’t think he is prepared to sacrifice his position as national opposition leader, his government in NWFP, and coalition in Balochistan for the whims of Qazi, whom he has never got on with.

Is the MMA nearing its endgame?

The one electoral alliance that held firm and was subject to the least number of desertions, Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), may have come to the threshold of its final undoing. The president of the MMA, Qazi Husain Ahmad, and the secretary general, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, of the alliance have exchanged hot words. It seems that Qazi Sahib’s radicalism has made inroads into the Maulana’s domain or turf on the question of resigning from parliament and the assemblies. Maulana Fazlur Rehman has never warmed towards Qazi Hussain Ahmad personally. There was a time when, during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, Qazi Sahib was riding high because of his links with the Afghan jihad and his closeness to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But when the second Afghan war began — best called civil war since the Afghans were killing each other — and the Taliban nearly conquered Afghanistan, it was Maulana Fazlur Rehman whose fatwas of death against the Americans and his Deobandi jihadi foot-soldiers eclipsed Qazi Sahib.

When the MMA was formed, all the religious parties found useful shelter in it. But as everyone discovered after the 2002 elections, the alliance was essentially built on Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI foundation. It was his party in the NWFP and Balochistan that got most of the votes. It was not the religious vote that the MMA wanted because it was purely an ethnic Pashtun vote and the Pashtun thought that the JUI’s Deobandis had stood by the Pashtun Taliban rather than the Jama’at’s much lower-profile Al Badr and Hizbul Mujahideen. As far as the Jama’at-e Islami was concerned, it once again lost badly in Punjab. Thus Maulana Fazlur Rehman watched everyone in the MMA get a leg-up politically at the cost of his party and was put off by the fact that the MMA parties that had least to lose in the case of a showdown with the government were becoming the most radical and trying to poach on his vote-bank. Qazi Hussain Ahmad was worried that his party seemed not to have any significant hold or political future in a democratic Pakistan, especially as the JUI had succeeded in handling the two governments it had helped form. So he embraced radicalism from the beginning, pushing the envelope on the Maulana and inviting him to the ‘million marches’ at which the JUI is not so good because it simply did not have a toehold in the big cities. He also dared the rest of the alliance to come out into the streets and confront President Pervez Musharraf frontally. But the Maulana did not want confrontation because he stood to lose his government in Peshawar and his party members in the Balochistan cabinet did not want to let go of power so soon. But Qazi Sahib’s derring-do has admittedly affected the JUI’s hinterland. The Pashtun are fired by religion and ghairat (honour) and nothing works better in the satisfaction of honour than fighting. So Maulana Sahib had to constantly run the gauntlet of Qazi Sahib who would go over the Maulana’s head and appeal to his (Maulana’s) constituency in the tribal areas with his warlike behaviour. Therefore when the Maulana ‘lost’ his deputy Hafiz Hussain Ahmad of Balochistan to Qazi Sahib’s radicalism, the blow was hard to take. The recent harsh words between the two leaders were triggered by Qazi Sahib’s reference to Hafiz Hussain Ahmad’s ‘proposed’ exit from parliament in protest at the passing of the WPB.

The latest crisis has been touched off by Qazi Sahib’s demand that the JUI should resign en masse from parliament and the assemblies as decided in an MMA supreme body meeting. The Maulana says his party is not willing to leave the corridors of power and is backed strongly in this stance by his party’s leader in the Quetta assembly, Maulana Muhammad Khan Sherani. The actual fact is that the Maulana doesn’t want to go into the wilderness just yet and feels that Qazi Sahib wants to risk everything without the assurance of getting anything. Was the MMA ever able to control its wayward children in the sectarian war in order to achieve credibility among the masses? The Shia party in it, which was driven from pillar to post for 20 years, thought it would find shelter inside the MMA. But in 2003 Qazi Hussain Ahmad was greatly embarrassed in Quetta when the Hazara leader whose people had just been massacred, accused the MMA parties of doing the deed. And Al Qaeda’s Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, before he was caught in a Jama’at house in Rawalpindi, was in Quetta planning the cruel deed. Further, the MMA could do nothing to stop the cruel murder of Allama Hassan Turabi, the Shia leader who was an important member of the clerical alliance. The MMA could have fulfilled its pledge to resign en masse together with the ARD but ARD has itself has received a jolt because the PPPP is simply not willing to become a bedfellow with the clerics. In this scene of extreme disarray, Maulana Fazlur Rehman wants to play his cards cautiously. But it increasingly appears that he can’t do it remaining in the MMA together with Qazi Sahib.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\11\19\story_19-11-2006_pg3_1

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The state of the MMA.

Punjabi Taliban threat growing
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why anoucing resignations? just resign.
this bill just get rid of the 4 witnesses of rape required by this law by women.
resignation threat is nothing to do with this. confrontation for the sake of confrontation!!!!

and if the hadood bill was so successful, can anybody tell me any case decided according to that law??? anyone stoned to death??? it resulted in rapist being getting away and complainant women ended up in jail for adultary even afterbeing raped and failure to have 4 witnesses of this henious crime.

I dont think they have courage to resign from this position they have got in last election thanks to agencies. If they having wet dreams of bein PM and Priminister in next election or gaining any extra seats thats a far far impossibilty.

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If the MMA really want to resign why wait till December?

Nickie Nina Bridal and Formals
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its drama, lets hold them to their words. after all a verbal commitment is a commitment.

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Maulana Fazl will not give resignation, he wants to stay in power. Qazi will eventually loose all support he has bcoz of Fazlu.

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Dramay baaz, why announce they will resign, if they have any guts just do it. Their resignation will be a great Ehsan on the nation as well.

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Maulana Fazl a.k.a Diesel is the main hurdle, he is Musharrafs biggest supporter, him being leader of opposition is absurd. This is the friendliest opposition in history!

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no way does islam require 4 witnesses in the way the bill was interpreted and applied. Islam says if 4 witnesses are not present then the rapist might get away from the “hadd” punishment but the judge will apply punishment himself and the woman has **no punishment. **

read here http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=72338&ln=eng&txt=punishment%20for%20rape

Al-Muntaha Sharh al-Muwatta’, 5/268, 269
Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:
The scholars are unanimously agreed that the rapist is to be subjected to the hadd punishment if there is clear evidence against him that he deserves the hadd punishment, or if he admits to that. Otherwise, he is to be punished (i.e., if there is no proof that the haddpunishment for zina may be carried out against him because he does not confess, and there are not four witnesses, then the judge may punish him and stipulate a punishment that will deter him and others like him). There is no punishmen for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her, which may be proven by her screaming and shouting for help. End quote.
Al-Istidhkaar, 7/146

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MMA and entire opposition in disarray.

Musharraf has called the bluff of the political mullahs with real style. :k:

PML-N to stand by PPP on resignations: ‘Breaking ranks to harm ARD’

The PML-N will prefer to stand by the PPP rather than the MMA on the issue of resignations from the assemblies, as breaking ranks with the PPP at this juncture will lead to disintegration of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, PML-N secretary-general Iqbal Zafar Jhaghra said here on Wednesday. “If we decide to quit the assemblies without taking the PPP along, way will be paved for break-up of the six-year old alliance”, said the PML-N leader who is also secretary-general of the 16-party alliance. Mr Jhaghra told Dawn that while the MMA was threatening to come out of the assemblies on the issue of women’s rights bill, the PML-N would not follow the suit. Instead, he said, it would take a decision on the subject in consultation with the PPP. Legislators of both the parties have already submitted their resignations to their respective leaders, leaving it to them to decide the time of handing them over to the speakers. If all opposition lawmakers take a collective decision, their resignations would mean vacation of 136 out of total 342 seats of the National Assembly. (At the time of a recent no-trust motion against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, 136 MNAs had voted against him).

The PML-N is contacting other opposition parties and inviting them to an all-party conference, likely to be held in the second half of December in London to ensure participation of exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif. The ARD secretary-general tried to talk to MMA President Qazi Husain Ahmed and Secretary-General Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Wednesday but either their phones were switched off or they were holding meetings. :hehe: The APC, according to Mr Jhaghra, would discuss a strategy to bring military interventions to an end, restore the 1973 Constitution as it stood before the October 1999 coup and build up pressure for formation of an interim government and appointment of an independent election commission. He said the APC would also decide whether a movement should be launched before or after submission of resignations. Answering a question, Mr Jhaghra said his party would not accept any election held in the presence of Gen Pervez Musharraf. “This is an irreversible decision. Our party will not accept elections under the supervision of a dictator”. Mr Jhagra said that the security of the country had been endangered by the dictator and he should quit immediately. The sooner the elections were held the better, the ARD leader said, adding that March-April 2007 would be an ideal time for general elections.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/11/23/top2.htm

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**“Will the MMA walk out of the National Assembly? Hard to say but it would be a good thing if they do.”
**Said Ayaz Amir in his Friday Column in Dawn today.
http://dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

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all they do is stick ther belly out and walk around. Feed them halwa and a big fook off

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Read Youm-e-Nijaat.

PS Most of the text is missing. Rizwan :wink:

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its a new way of anoucing resignations, i thought only way is to actually resign rather than just crying it loud we are resigning. we are resigning.... that speaks for itself.

either they say they are not resigning and were just scoring some cheap points. or they should just resign and say WE have resigned!