Pakistan's Islamic Parties Struggle for Support

Jan was not even supposed to be running for election this year. His party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami, or JUI, had ceded the seat to its coalition partner, Jamaat-e-Islami, or JI. But because of JI concerns that the vote will be rigged, the party's bespectacled and professorial leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, decided there was no point in contesting. Most JI candidates are sitting out the election.

Both parties preach the notion of turning Pakistan into a theocracy. But they have very different ideas about how to get there.

"JUI thinks now is the best time to get a share of power," said Ershad Mahmud, research coordinator at the Institute of Policy Studies, a JI-funded research institute. "But JI doesn't believe in sharing power. JI wants to change the system."

The schism between the two has opened up an opportunity for secular-minded parties that had been trounced by JI and JUI in the northwest in 2002 but are now looking to make a comeback.

Throughout its 60-year history, Pakistan has consistently favored secular parties, despite the nation's origins as a separate homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. The high-water mark for the Islamic parties, 2002, yielded just 12 percent of the national vote.

But that year they were able to sweep the northwest and seize control of the provincial government.

At the time, they railed against the United States, alcohol, gambling, cable television and coeducation. Their record in government turned out to be more moderate than their slogans suggested.

But rival parties hope to make an issue of the growing Taliban threat in the northwest, which they say has been worsened by indifference -- or even quiet support -- from the religious parties. In particular, rivals cite the Swat Valley, a former tourist hub that has lately become the scene of intense battles between insurgents and Pakistan's army.

Latif Afridi, a cleanshaven lawyer who helps lead a Pashtun-nationalist party, said the religious parties "are directly responsible for the destruction of Swat." He also said they are now vulnerable because they abandoned their promises.

While they ran in 2002 on a vow of clean government and improved citizen services, leaders of religious parties have fallen prey to the same allegations of corruption and lackluster governance that shadow the nation's secular parties.

"They've got a record now, and it's not a great one," said a Western diplomat, who would speak only on condition of anonymity. "When you're out of office, you can call for all sorts of things and be a paragon of virtue. But when you're in office, it's a different story. The glitter has worn off a little bit."

Qibla Ayaz, dean of the Islamic studies program at the University of Peshawar, agreed. "Frankly speaking, this was not a government that people liked very much," said Ayaz, who has ties to JUI.