LOWER DIR, Pakistan: Siraj-ul-Haq, chief of a prominent Pakistani religious political party, has said free and fair elections were the “only way forward” as the South Asian country grapples with economic and political crisis amid a sharp rise in militant attacks. 
Haq leads the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the Pakistani successor to the Jamaat-e-Islami founded in colonial India in 1941 by Abul Ala Maududi, a religious scholar best known for advocating an Islamic state in which the affairs of the government could be run under Sharia law.
While the JI has never formed a government in Pakistan itself, it was part of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) coalition governments in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2002 and 2013 respectively. 
Now, as the party holds rallies in the run-up to elections, its leader said JI’s stance was that transparent polls were “the only way forward to improve the law-and-order situation, fix the economy and to end unrest.”
“If the elections were made controversial or if they could not be fair, then the incoming government will also not be able to continue, will be weak, there will be fights, arguments and unrest,” Haq told Arab News in an interview this week. “For a smooth political environment, it is important to hold a fair election.”
At the moment, however, Haq said there was “political suffocation,” demanding fair competition in elections for all parties.
“Our demand is that the judiciary, election commission and the [military] establishment have the obligation to provide an equal political environment to all,” the JI leader added.
His comments come amid allegations by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party of a military-led crackdown that aims to keep them out of elections. The army denies it interferes in political affairs.
Pakistan is also headed to elections as it treads a tricky path to economic recovery under a caretaker setup after narrowly avoiding a default last year thanks to a last-gasp $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package. Attacks by militants, particularly the Pakistani Taliban as well as separatists, are on the rise, while Pakistan’s ties with all its neighbors are currently strained.
Haq blamed Pakistan’s litany of problems on its political parties and its history of military rule, saying both civilian and army-led governments had not delivered. 
“The circumstances are bad because of bad governance. So when you say there is unrest, so the unrest is due to these political leaders who strengthened themselves or their families, [but] didn’t strengthen the institutions, didn’t make the courts independent, didn’t improve the accountability system, and didn’t ensure the circulation of money [distribution of wealth] either,” Haq said.
Asked about the military’s outsized role in Pakistan’s political past and present, Haq again blamed political parties.
“Actually, the reason behind the involvement of the establishment [in politics] is because political parties are not organized here, in fact there is a lack of [internal] democracy in them, they do not have merit themselves,” the JI leader said.
“There is a family monarchy and there is no democracy within the party either, then personal character and affairs are weakened. Due to this weak character, they always remain weak.”
Responding to a questioning about his party’s position on the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), Haq said the JI did not support any group attempting to control the “government through arms.”
In the past, critics have accused the JI of sympathizing with the TTP and other religiously motivated militant groups.
“The way of preaching is open and the doors of reaching to power through elections are open and if one has a good narrative, present it before the people and come to power through the vote and support of people,” Haq said. “We don’t agree with any activity which is based on force, arms and terror.”