Muslim Groups Likely to Not Issue Endorsement for President

MWU! Exclusive

By Ahmed Nassef

Barring any last minute initiatives from the Kerry campaign, the American Muslim Taskforce (AMT), a coalition of major Muslim organizations, is preparing to announce later this week that they are not issuing an endorsement for a presidential candidate in the upcoming elections.

According to several members who attended a 7-hour meeting in Washington on Sunday to decide on an endorsement, the decision was taken after representatives from the AMT member organizations failed to come to a consensus in support of one candidate.

Some members, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Fremont, CA-based United Muslims of America (UMA), were actively lobbying for a Kerry endorsement, while representatives of other organizations held firm against endorsing any candidate, according to Shahed Amanullah, who was in attendance on behalf of UMA and who also publishes altmuslim.com.

"There were several people in that room who have a little bit of access to the Bush administration regarding policy and are loathe to jeopardize that," said Amanullah. "They are focusing on a few things and overlooking the big picture," he said.

The non-endorsement decision would come as a surprise to many in the American Muslim community, which polls show overwhelmingly supports Sen. John Kerry's candidacy.

For some, the AMT's decision is proof of the irrelevance of major American Muslim organizations.

"The national leadership misled the Muslim community by giving them the impression that a wise decision was on the horizon," said Aslam Abdullah, editor of the Minaret Magazine and Muslim Observer. "The decision [not to endorse] is a tacit endorsement of George Bush," he said.

Four years ago, many of the same organizations involved in AMT endorsed the Bush/Cheney campaign in what was a highly controversial process, criticized for its lack of transparency and consultation with the grassroots Muslim community.

But Ahmed Younis, National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), defended his group's position on the non-endorsement.

"Non-endorsement is a sophisticated political move that has been taken by many communities in America's history, and MPAC believes that we can’t be stuck in the prism of endorsing one or the other… we must engage on issues of substance," Younis said.

Younis asserted that the Kerry campaign was unwilling to address any of the main demands put forward by Muslim organizations, such as the repeal of specific elements of the Patriot Act and the appointment of a Muslim to a policy-making position in a Kerry administration. "It seems that the people at the policy making level of the campaign are not willing to provide us with what we think are legitimate requests," he said.

But James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute and a longtime Democratic Party activist was highly critical of the Muslim organizations' strategy.

"Those organizations, frankly speaking, don't represent their constituencies, and I think they made a terrible mistake," Zogby said. "I think they are not paying any attention at all to what their constituencies are saying… I 'm sorry, politics dictate that I should be gentler, but I think it's important to tell the truth," he said.

Zogby sees the non-endorsement as a serious mistake and betrays a lack of political sophistication. "There are two words that ought to move everybody off the dime—John Ashcroft," Zogby said. "Seventy percent of American Muslims say they are voting for Kerry anyway… Guess how many votes one way or another that these groups will impact—none , five may be."

The Kerry campaign did not reply to several interview requests for this story.

Ahmed Nassef is editor-in-chief of MWU!