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Abstract
The impressive gains of the six-piece religious party alliance, the MMA (Muttahida Majlis-i-Aml), in October 2002 Elections in Pakistan represent a mass mobilization in the name of Islam on a scale not seen since the creation of Pakistan. The theory of 'Islam in danger' was raised both against foreign, i.e., American neo-imperialism and against what were seen as 'un-Islamic forces' within the society. The concept of political Islam and its manipulation by the Isalmists stirred the political will of the masses. October 2002 polls marks the ever first time experience of the NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), at least in the post-independence period, where a pre-electoral religio-political parties' alliance (the MMA) ruled the province with apparently no threat from the central government. The replacement of political forces/parties in certain regions (dominating by them since 1937) with relatively inexperienced religious leaders, unexposed to modern western education required the attention of all the stakeholders, including the international actors, now very active in the region. In this paper, we try to look into and analyse religion, politics and ethnicity with particular reference to the causes of and factors for the success of the MMA in the Pakthtun dominated areas in Pakistan.
Keywords: 2002 General Elections; MMA; religion; politics; ethnicity; KP (NWFP)
Introduction
The incident of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent counter-terrorist strikes on Afghanistan had enormous impacts for Pakistan body politics. It affected the outcome of the October 2002 election results as well. The Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-i-Azam group (PML-Q) won 118 national assembly seats out of 342 followed by 80 seats of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People Party Parliamentarians (PPPP). The astonishing development in Pakistan's political history was the landmark victory of the religio-political alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Aml (the MMA)1 which won 30 out of 36 National Assembly seats in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Having total sixty one seats in the national assembly, the MMA emerged the third largest party in the national assembly. The MMA successfully grabbed the position of the leader of opposition for Mawlana Fazlur Rahman, head of the Jamiat ul ulama-i-Islam-F.2 Winning 53 out of 99 general seats, the MMA formed its government in the NWFP, while in Baluchistan it became a partner in the coalition government with the...