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Pakistan Link February 1, 2002 A strategy to make the Muslim vote effective By Abdus Sattar Ghazali Newark, CA: Dr. Agha Saeed, the National Chair of the American Muslim Alliance, has suggested a battle ground strategy to make the Muslim and Arab vote effective in the November elections. Addressing an AMA gathering, he said: “We have to identify those states where the contest is closest, the margin for victory is the smallest and where small groups can play important role”. He said that an optimal Muslim strategy has to be a national strategy because nine million strong Muslim and Arab community cannot vote for the same candidate in any case, except the President and the Vice President candidate, because these people do not live in the same city or the same state. “With this strategy we were able to create a bloc vote in the year 2000.” Dr. Agha Saeed added that “this year we don’t have a presidential election so I am proposing to you a battle ground strategy. We have to identify those states where the contest is the closest, the margin for victory is the smallest and where small groups can play important role”. Explaining this strategy, Dr. Agha Saeed recalled that the Senate was divided 50-50, when Jim Gafford made a move from being a Republican to an independent. And with one person leaving the Republican Party the chairmanship of the Senate and all its committees went to the Democrats. The power structure changed. Bush’s ability to get through the legislation has changed. “Now if in 2002, for the Republicans to loose or gain two or three senate seats could decide the balance of power for the next two years. And may even decide, not necessarily, the presidency for the next term. Therefore, we have to identify these states and organize ourselves. Understand, where the contest is the closest, the margin for victory is the smallest, and where small groups can play an important role.” Dr. Agha Saeed argued that if we have identified five states - California, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey and New York - we are going to play that role. “One state where we have the largest number of Muslims and Arabs in the US is California. We have not actually come together and demonstrated our ability to be effective in any major election. This is the year to do that.” The former Congressman, Paul Findley, in his book entitled “ Silent No More,” has documented the Muslim bloc vote in 2000 and how 66,000 Muslim votes were decisive for a Bush victory. Most major media recognized that. The AMA Chairman pointed out that when Al Gore went to a mosque in Michigan last year, he asked Jim Zogby, who was the person who took him there, why he had gone to the mosque. Zogby replied that Al Gore knew how to count. “I think that was most the precise answer. Politicians know how to count. “What I am suggesting is that a million people or 1.2 million people (if you add Christian Arabs), is a large segment of population in California that could make some kind of difference in the outcome. So it is not a surprise to me that … we received phone calls from both candidates for governorship of California….” Dr. Agha Saed said “as we are now talking about a nine million strong community, I will now suggest the following simple steps to make our voice effective:” 1. What we need to do is to register ourselves. This is the key. There are very large number of people who are not registered to vote yet. 2. We need voter education. We have to download the ballot, blow it up and discuss every item of the ballot with the community, thus facilitating ballot education. AMA is doing this ballot education. The Women League of Voters also does voter education without supporting any candidate. 3. We have to quadruple the number of activists in the Muslim community. We need people to be a partner with new alliances. The activists could go to these alliances and become permanent members. Thus, we become part of this whole thing. |