Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, General Secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, a constituent of the Muthahida Majlis Amal, said having male rulers was the "Islamic way" and his proposal was being considered by the election manifesto committee of the alliance.

The committee will finalise the MMA manifesto at its next meeting sometime in April after which they will be sent to the Supreme Council of the alliance for final approval, reports in the media here said.

Paradoxically, the committee also discussed a proposal to give special seats to women in the assemblies. His proposal would be contrary to the other suggestion being considered by the MMA manifesto group that women and men should be treated equally. MMA information secretary Pir Ejaz Hashmi said constituent parties had sent their proposals to the committee, which were made part of the preliminary draft of the manifesto.

He said the manifesto committee believed that the MMA should remove a general impression that religious parties showed bias against women. "In fact, we understand that women must enjoy a status equal to men and take practical and legal measures to ensure that half of the country's population meaningfully contributes to the development of society and the country," he said.

Other proposals at the meeting concerned improving the MMA's image and portray it as a modern party in touch with technological progress so as to counter the "negative portrayal" of it by the West as a backward political force.