Pragmatic Maulana Fazlur Rahman walks back from narrow alley

As the two-day deadline drew to a close, Maulana Fazlur Rahman preferred to walk back from his current situation of narrow alley he hit himself in earlier. He softened up his stance when Maulana and opposition (PPP and PML-N) disagreed on storming D-Chowk. For him, a glaring omission from the current environment was the issue of whether the government would be forced to yield to his demand, i.e, PM Imran Khan’s resignation.

Until yesterday evening, even as the government might have originally intended to underestimate at least parts of the Maulana’s mobilisation, the window for compromise was closing, it seemed, spelling prolonged uncertainty for Imran Khan government with potentially heavy cost to the state, had there been a showdown.

The reduced room for compromise was due in part to the rigid stand of Maulana, and the lack of political maturity of the incumbent government’s negotiating team bending into concerns of the other powerful segments for letting political issues out of control.

From opposition’s corruption cases to Maulana’s street muscles to technical breach of the contract with Islamabad administration were multiple flashpoints which would favour policy hawks on Maulana over the doves in Islamabad. At the same time, the theme of Maulana’s speeches dragging security institutions, drew a broader swath of the opinion in such communities into recognizing that "the Maulana was about to cross the Rubicon".

As the March reached its peak on Sunday with thousands of party workers descending on Islamabad from Tablighi Congregation, there were no signs of any new avenues the government and the Rabta Committee negotiators were scoping out.

And the stakes were so high for all concerned parties. Maulana had dragged the country’s security institutions by blaming them to sponsor Imran government and even his Rabta Committee also demanded elections without the supervision of the Army personnel, going forward. There was also a growing imperative for the security establishment to dispel these allegations: the rebuttal of DG ISPR Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor was meant to strongly deny the allegations adding that being a constitutional institution, the army has to support an elected government and that the allegations of rigging should have been taken to concerned forums.

With Maulana increasingly concerned about madrasa reforms of the PTI government and dwindling political base, he wanted to revive his political fortunes: so far he has won to become a de facto opposition leader outmanoeuvring mainstream political parties and rendering them to irrelevance. His thought process suggested if he continued to be politically relevant, JUI-F would likely sweep elections in 2023 in his influenced areas.

But he was risking too much as well. Once he crossed the state’s red lines then the cost of political bargaining over his political manoeuvring would have risen dramatically and left less room for compromise. The last thing he needed was to disregard the imperatives of keeping in view the constraints of hostile public opinion, the rising tension of geo-politics, workers seething over their hardships and the ambit of the state institutions, i.e, balancing his political ambitions with their redlines.

Conspicuous by its absence was Maulana’s compromising streak, which he developed as political behaviour over decades of his career, during Islamabad March.

Mashed together PPP and PML-N with JUI-F, had a clear choice: both PPP and PML-N are stakeholders in the current political system as such refused to share a more hard-line approach of Maulana. They already indicated that neither they would join in the proposed set in in D-Chowk nor would resign from assemblies.

The PTI Government also adopted a more hard-line policy towards Maulana as he failed to climb down on a rigid one point agenda—PM Imran Khan’s resignation.

So far there is still no facing saving for Maulana Fazlur Rahman nor there is any lightweight compromise for the government — short of Imran Khan’s resignation.

However, the Chauhdary brothers who are close friends of Maulana would be able to give some face saving to Maulana who could sell to his supporters. So the climb down should be easy for Maulana as after his yesterday’s speech, pragmatism took over his more hard-line position and a possible impasse seems to be on the way out. (Jan Achakzai is a geopolitical analyst, a politician from Balochistan, and ex-adviser to the Balochistan Government on media and strategic communication. He remained associated with BBC World Service. He is also Chairman of Centre for Geo-Politics & Balochistan)