The TLP, an Islamist party, has been banned under terrorism laws on April 15th. The TLP was formed in 2015, had its leader arrested in 2018, then his son recently, followed by a ban under terrorism laws, just a couple days ago. They had 3 seats in one province’s parliament, and none in the national assembly. And they barely lasted an election cycle, and thankfully they won’t last another.
Only 20 to 30 seats out of nearly 400 have ever gone to religious parties in elections in the Pakistan’s history at the most. But they have an inordinate amount of power because their base doesn’t flip often and there are too many political parties for there not to be a need for a coalition government, and often their asks are reneged on or they get do nothing religious posts that ‘weigh in’ on ‘Islamic issues’ that’d please their base.
Occasionally they get out of pocket by asking for things of the government (that likes to use them to keep frontier provinces civil), like in this case where they mounted a series of inflammatory protests against the French over cartoons, a hijab/burka ban and have been running around threatening women’s rights protestors.
EDIT: repetition