Public urged to use 'ballot bomb'

\An alliance of Pakistan's main Islamic parties urged the people yesterday to use what they called the "ballot bomb" in the October 10 elections to defeat the pro-U.S. military government and its allied politicians.

These elections "are a fight between Islam and crusaders," Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of his own faction of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, said at the first election rally of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

The rally, held at Nishtar Park, attracted only around 5,000 people, most of whom were devoted followers of the component parties of the alliance, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, the main bulwark of Islamic forces in the country.

The MMA, however, suffered a setback at the very start of its electoral campaign, as the small Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis pulled out of its fold.

The Ahl-e-Hadis leader Professor Sajid Mir is running in elections on the ticket of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group) and is not participating in MMA activities.

Now only five parties, including the two JUI factions, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan and the outlawed Muslim Tehrik-e-Jafria, which has renamed itself as Tehrik-e-Islami, are running in elections under the MMA banner.

The MMA leaders said that turnout remained low because the rally has been organised only at a day's notice.

A day earlier, authorities prevented MMA leaders from boarding a train at Lahore for Karachi. During their journey, the leaders planned to address rallies at various railway stations.

But the election commission's code of conduct bars political parties from such activities at public places, including the railway stations.

Haq, who led a series of pro-Taliban protest at the start of U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan, said that Muslims failed to protect Afghans because they could not respond to the might of U.S. bombs.

"But we can protect ... victims through the ballot bomb to throw the pro-American government and its lackey politicians out of the power," he said.

"Our target is the international coalition forces ... we have to express solidarity with Muslims of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan" in these elections, he added.

The participants, including women, punctuated the speeches of their leaders with anti-U.S. slogans. "Whosoever is a friend of America is a traitor," they shouted. "Down with America."

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, said getting rid of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is vital for the Islamic forces.

Islamic hardliners, once a close ally of the military establishment, have turned against Musharraf because he sided with the United States in war in Afghanistan and turned his back on the Taliban, a one-time strong ally of Islamabad.

Pakistani security forces say that extremists want to assassinate Musharraf. In July, authorities arrested a gang of Islamic extremists who planned to kill Musharraf during his visit to Karachi.

The same group masterminded the June 14 bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi.

Ahmed said that Musharraf is "now afraid to get out of his house and remains confined most at the chief executive secretariat."

"When he comes to Karachi, a sort of curfew is imposed ... he cannot defend the country," he added.

Musharraf, who has been showered with praise from Western countries for his role in war against terrorism, has gone to the United States to attend the UN General Assembly. He will also meet U.S. President George Bush there.

Ahmed said Musharraf should not have gone to attend the ceremonies of the September 11 terrorist strikes in the United States and instead stayed here to attend the death anniversary of Pakistan's founding father Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah who died on September 11, 1948.
Ahmed said the MMA would fight the secular forces.

"We want to built an Islamic society," he said.

This is for the first time that religious parties have formed an electoral alliance of their own in an attempt to prevent their vote bank from dividing.

In the 1997 elections, religious groups faired poorly and most of the frontline leaders of these groups even failed to win their own seats.

The Jamaat-e-Islami had boycotted the last elections.