The call of Jamaat-i-Islami that Caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso should convene an all-party conference to work out a policy on the country’s security situation and combating terrorism at a time when the next parliamentary elections are only a few days away, sounds highly illogical for all practical purposes.

JI Amir Syed Munawwar Hasan told reporters in Quetta on Sunday that anti-state forces, on the dictates of foreign powers, are working on an agenda for creating anarchy to derail the electoral exercise. But the Jamaat once again minced words and did not name Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan as responsible for the violence This right-wing party apparently has a soft corner for the militants. This is because the TTP had many times in the past sought the guarantee of the chiefs of JI, JUI and the PML-N on a possible treaty with the government . The guarantee was sought when the Awami National Party convened an APC on the same issue in February this year. However, neither Maulana Fazlur Rehman, nor Munawar Hasan nor Nawaz Sharif agreed to stand guarantors most probably because they did not want to be bracketed with the outfit that is proscribed in Pakistan and elsewhere for its extremism and militancy.

This may also be recalled that the Pakistan People’s Party-led government had as back as May 2008 sponsored an APC to seek political leadership’s approval for an operation against militants in Swat and Malakand. The previous government also called a joint session of parliament in October the same year where top intelligence military and civilian officers gave a 15-day in-camera briefing to MPs before adopting a consensus resolution on October 22 which must be acknowledged as Pakistan’s first anti-terror policy and all further steps to rout militancy were taken under this. Most probably the JI demand has already been accepted because there cannot be higher forums than that of 2008 where the menace in all its manifestations was discussed threadbare and line of action determined.

Still despite so huge a task already done, the caretaker administration seems helpless in the wake of a spate of terror attacks and suicide bombing on election offices, candidates and their party workers and even the offices of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Yet, there seems no urgent need to call another APC which will end up nowhere except that the name of Jamaat-i-Islami will be named as the party which sponsored such a conference.
Nevertheless, the Jamaat cannot in any case boost up its election potential.
This has been the JI’s past electoral record since the first free and independent nation polls were held in 1970 when the this party’s candidates returned only on four out of 87 seats in the National Assembly. There does not seem any significant shift in the JI electoral prospect ever since as the people by and large have voted for parties having a secular agenda.

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