Pakistani cleric Hafiz Saeed is one of the United States’ most-wanted terrorist suspects, accused over the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. At home, his charities are banned, as is a new Islamist political party launched by his followers.
None of that has stopped Saeed from hitting the campaign trail for Pakistan’s July 25 general election, denouncing the outgoing government as “traitors” and whipping up support for the more than 200 candidates he backs.
The main race in Wednesday’s vote is between the party of now-jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which is seeking a second consecutive term despite its leader’s downfall on corruption charges, and the party of former cricket star Imran Khan, perceived as the favorite of the powerful military.
But a bumper crop of ultra-Islamist groups are also contesting the poll, with the potential to reshape the political landscape of the nuclear-armed Muslim country of 208 million people with anti-Western rhetoric and calls for ever-stricter interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law.
The proliferation of religious parties appears to be a fulfilment of a proposal made by Pakistan’s military to “mainstream” armed Islamists and other extremists into politics, though the parties and the army deny any links.
Even if, as expected, they win few seats, liberal and secular-minded Pakistanis say the sheer number of religious party candidates, combined with their ultra-conservative rhetoric, has already shifted the agenda in their direction.
Pakistan’s three main parties all stress devotion to Islam, but the new religious parties portray them – especially the PML-N - as leading Pakistan down a Western-inspired path away from the country’s Islamic values.
One new party, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, campaigns under the rallying cry “death to blasphemers” and is fielding 566 candidates.
Another party, the Sunni extremist Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), is also fielding dozens of candidates under a different name, even though it is banned as the political wing of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has killed hundreds of minority Shi’ite Muslims. The party denies links with LeJ.
Last month, ASWJ leader Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi’s name was removed by a caretaker government from Pakistan’s terrorism watchlist, cementing his own candidacy.
A spokesman for the Election Commission of Pakistan, Altaf Khan, asked about the banned groups’ candidates, said no illegal group had been registered.
Critics say the real goal is for new ultra-religious parties to cut into the conservative base of Sharif’s party and confer legitimacy to Islamist militants the army has long been accused of nurturing as proxies in its rivalry with India.
“They have to be taken care of,” political commentator Raza Rumi said of such groups. “So this election is a test case as to how far the goal of mainstreaming these groups can be achieved.”
Analysts say even with the increase in candidates, Islamists are unlikely to win more than a dozen or so seats in parliament.
The religious parties - some new, others long-established - are fielding more than 1,500 candidates for national and provincial assemblies in Wednesday’s general election.
Some of the main Islamist groups taking part are as follows:
Milli Muslim League (MML)
- PARTY LEADER: Saifullah Khalid, supported by spiritual leader Hafiz Saeed
- LEGAL STATUS: Banned in Pakistan for its association with spiritual leader Hafiz Saeed, who is on a UN terrorism list in connection with 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. Saeed denied involvement in the attacks.
- ELECTION STATUS: Candidates registered under the name Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek are campaigning with Saeed’s image on their posters and election materials.
- CANDIDATES: 260. 73 for National Assembly and the rest for provincial assemblies.
- RELIGIOUS SECT: Ahl-e-Hadith, also known as Salafi branch of Sunni Islam.
- BACKGROUND: Hafiz Saeed’s charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) formed the MML party in August 2017. The United Nations says the JuD is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Army of the Pure, which the United States and India blame for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Saeed has a $10 million bounty on his head.
Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP)
- PARTY LEADER: Khadim Hussain Rizvi
- LEGAL STATUS: Registered with Election Commission.
- ELECTION STATUS: Candidates contesting under the TLP banner.
- CANDIDATES: 566,178 for National Assembly, the rest for provincial assemblies.
- RELIGIOUS SECT: Barelvi school of Sunni Islam.
- BACKGROUND: The party emerged out of a protest movement in 2016 against the state’s execution of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi, an Islamic preacher paralyzed from the waist down following a road accident, heads the party.
In its first ever election in September, 2017, the party surprised Pakistani political elite with a strong showing by securing nearly 8 percent of total votes cast in a by-election.
Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ)
- PARTY LEADER: Maulana Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi
- LEGAL STATUS: Banned for being the political wing of sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has been allied with al-Qaeda and Daesh and responsible for the killing of hundreds of minority Shi’ite Muslims. The party denies links with LeJ.
- ELECTION STATUS: Candidates are running under the name of Pakistan Rah-e-Haq party, or as independents.
- CANDIDATES: More than 150.
- RELIGIOUS SECT: Hardline Deobandi Sunni branch of Islam.
- BACKGROUND: The banned ASWJ is another name for the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), founded in 1985, which belongs to Deobandi school of Islam, which in turn was carved out of pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) party. It considers minority Shi’ite Muslims heretics.
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)
- PARTY LEADERS: Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, Sirajul Haq and Allama Sajid Naqvi.
- LEGAL STATUS: Most of the parties in the religious alliance are long-established and legally registered with the Election Commission, except for the Shi’ite Tehreek-e-Islami, which is a new name for the banned Tehreek-e-Jafria Pakistan (TJP).
- ELECTION STATUS: Candidates from two major parties and more than a dozen small religious groups are contesting under the MMA alliance.
- CANDIDATES: 595. For the National Assembly there are 191 and the rest are for provincial assemblies.
- RELIGIOUS SECT: Deobandi, Ahl-e-Hadith, Barelvi of Sunni Islam and one Shi’ite group.
- BACKGROUND: The MMA was founded prior to the general election in 2002, which was conducted under military ruler General Pervez Musharraf. It comprised more than two dozen extremist religious parties from various sects.
The alliance won enough seats to form the government in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and promoted a harsh brand of Sharia, or Islamic law.