Tracing Steps: The rise and fall of MMA

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) was a coalition of Islamist parties, formed in 2001 to contest that year’s provincial and the following year’s general elections. 

It comprised Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maulana Samiul Haq factions (JUI-F and JUI-S), Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith (JAH) and the now-banned Tehreek-e-Jafria Pakistan (TJP, currently known as the Pakistani Islami Tehreek). JUP leader Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani initially headed the coalition.

MMA captured the majority of seats from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) in the 2001 regional and 2002 general elections. The coalition won 52 out of 99 seats in the provincial assembly and went on to form a government in the province. MMA also grabbed 29 National Assembly (NA) seats from the province, winning a total of 45 seats in the assembly from all over the country.

By October 2007, MMA was on the verge of a split due to a widening rift between JI and JUI-F. Political differences between the two component parties arose after MMA backed the 17th Constitutional Amendment which granted then president Pervez Musharraf legal cover.

New general elections were held on 18 February, 2008. JI later chose to boycott the elections,which were in any case disastrous for the alliance.

Dissatisfied with MMA’s five years in power in NWFP, voters strongly rejected the coalition this time around.

By early 2009, hopes for the coalition’s revival were dashed after a meeting of the component parties ended without any positive outcome. JI had been reluctant to revive the alliance, maintaining several of its decisions had damaged the party’s public image.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2012.