The president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic has accused the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo of using its development agency to interfere in the Balkan country’s election process, a charge dismissed by the embassy as a “wild” conspiracy theory.

Milorad Dodik said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was implementing its aid programme through non-government organisations to conceal what he said was its real agenda of countering Russian influence in the region.

“Aiming to directly interfere in internal affairs of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia, USAID … tries to avoid all institutions and to grant funds under cover of the alleged fight against crime and corruption,” Dodik said.

Dodik, a critic of the West who favours closer ties with Russia, accused the central Bosnian government of conspiring with USAID in the matter and said that NGOs in the Serb Republic which receive USAID funding would be investigated.

Bosnia is divided into a Serb Republic and an entity for its Muslim Bosniak and Croat populations, which are linked via a weak central government.

The U.S. Embassy dismissed Dodik’s accusations.

“Once again, the assistance of the people of the United States is being used to support wild conspiracy theories in the interest of election campaigning in Bosnia,” it said in a statement.

The embassy said it was still negotiating with the Bosnian central government programmes worth a total $8 million to help combat graft, and it accused Dodik of trying to mislead the public and intimidate USAID partners.

Bosnia’s Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic also dismissed Dodik’s allegations, saying the programmes accepted by the Council of Ministers were only at an initial stage and could not influence the election process.

Dodik, who has been blacklisted by the United States for pushing for an illegal referendum on an illegal holiday, has often accused Western governments of being biased against Serbs.

Political analysts said Dodik’s rhetoric showed he had begun early campaigning for Bosnia’s parliamentary and presidential elections on Oct. 7. He plans to run for the Serbs’ seat in Bosnia’s tripartite inter-ethnic presidency.

Last month, Dodik also accused Britain of sending intelligence specialists to Bosnia to meddle in the election campaign. Britain said he was “inventing fake threats” as part of his election campaigning.

Pakistani cleric Hafiz Saeed is one of the United States’ most-wanted terrorist suspects, accused of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. At home, his charities are banned, as is a new Islamist political party launched by his followers.

None of that has stopped Saeed from hitting the campaign trail for Pakistan’s July 25 General Election, denouncing the outgoing government as “traitors” and whipping up support for the more than 200 candidates he backs.

“The politics of the American servants is coming to an end!” Saeed thundered at a rally this month in the eastern city of Lahore, where supporters showered him with rose petals.

The main race in Wednesday’s vote is between the party of now-jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which is seeking a second consecutive term despite its leader’s downfall on corruption charges, and the party of former cricket star Imran Khan, perceived as the favourite of the powerful military.

But a bumper crop of ultra-Islamist groups are also contesting the poll, with the potential to reshape the political landscape of the nuclear-armed Muslim country of 208 million people with anti-Western rhetoric and calls for ever-stricter interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law.

The proliferation of religious parties appears to be a fulfilment of a proposal made by Pakistan’s military to “mainstream” armed Islamists and other extremists into politics, though the parties and the army deny any links.

Even if, as expected, they win few seats, liberal and secular-minded Pakistanis say the sheer number of religious party candidates, combined with their ultra-conservative rhetoric, has already shifted the agenda in their direction.

With the new parties routinely accusing opponents of blasphemy or treason, mainstream parties have echoed their language in attacking Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

“The ostensible attempt to mainstream the religious right-wing is not making these parties take relatively moderate positions,” said Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch. “But rather, it’s radicalising the mainstream.”

VIOLENT RHETORIC

Religious parties – some new, others established – are fielding more than 1,500 candidates for national and provincial assemblies, compared with a few hundred in 2013.

While Pakistan has always had Islamist parties, the new entries are notable for their alleged links to militants and their rhetorical attacks on mainstream politicians’ piety or patriotism.

Pakistan’s three main parties all stress devotion to Islam, but the new religious parties portray them – especially the PML-N – as leading Pakistan down a Western-inspired path away from the country’s Islamic values.

One new party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, campaigns under the rallying cry “death to blasphemers” and is fielding 566 candidates.

Its candidates rail against the PML-N as blasphemers for a small abortive change last year to election law, which was quickly reversed after nationwide protests in which at least seven people were killed.

The change was to the swearing-in oath for candidates – from a religious vow to a simple declaration – stating the Prophet Mohammad was God’s last messenger, a central tenet of Islam.

In May, a man police identified as a Labbaik supporter shot and wounded then-Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal as he left a meeting. He told interrogators Iqbal had to die because he was a blasphemer.

Tehreek-e-Labbaik leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi condemned Iqbal’s shooting. But this month, he said the party could not be held responsible.

“We didn’t instigate anyone. These are the emotions of the nation,” Rizvi told Reuters, adding. “In a way, it rightly happened.”

Leaders of the mainstream opposition parties all condemned the attack on Iqbal.

Still, Imran Khan has also invoked the blasphemy controversy in campaign speeches, defending such language in a recent interview with Reuters.

“You cannot be a Muslim if you don’t believe that the Prophet, our Prophet, is the last prophet,” Khan said. “So to reiterate and support it is just standing with your faith.”

BANNED GROUPS

While Tehreek-e-Labbaik is a legally registered party, other movements fielding candidates are officially banned in Pakistan but have bypassed the legal restrictions.

Pakistan’s Election Commission this year rejected Saeed’s Islamic charity’s application to register a political party, the Milli Muslim League, but the group later registered candidates under the name of an existing party, Allahu Akbar Tehreek, which now campaigns with Saeed’s image on its posters.

Saeed is accused of masterminding the 2008 attacks on India’s financial capital. The United States offers a $10 million reward for his conviction over the attacks, in which several Americans were killed. Saeed denies any involvement.

Another party, the Sunni extremist Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), is also fielding dozens of candidates under a different name, even though it is banned as the political wing of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has killed hundreds of minority Shi’ite Muslims. The party denies links with LeJ.

Last month, ASWJ leader Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi’s name was removed by a caretaker government from Pakistan’s terrorism watchlist, cementing his own candidacy.

A spokesman for the Election Commission of Pakistan, Altaf Khan, asked about the banned groups’ candidates, said no illegal group had been registered.

“If some political party is registered with us, and it has come through the (legal) process, what’s wrong in it?,” Khan said.

He added that the commission was investigating complaints of banned parties campaigning under different names.

A military spokesman declined to comment on religious parties. The army denies interfering in politics.

However, the military did propose “mainstreaming” militant-linked groups into politics in a 2016 National Security meeting, military and government sources have told Reuters. The plan was pitched as a way to reduce violence and extremism under the model of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Critics say the real goal is for new ultra-religious parties to cut into the conservative base of Sharif’s party and confer legitimacy to Islamist militants the army has long been accused of nurturing as proxies in its rivalry with India.

“They have to be taken care of,” political commentator Raza Rumi said of such groups. “So this election is a test case as to how far the goal of mainstreaming these groups can be achieved.”

Analysts say that even with the increase in candidates, Islamists are unlikely to win more than a dozen or so seats in parliament.

But that might not be the point. Pakistani author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, a longtime critic of the military, believes the army, tired of civilian governments challenging its grip on foreign policy and large chunks of the economy, is seeking to weaken mainstream parties.

“The military wants to alter, engineer the national discourse,” Siddiqa said. “They want to build a new nationalism. They want a new identity, and that is Islamic identity.”

Pakistan’s interior ministry has called for the electoral commission to bar from politics a new party backed by an Islamist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, a government document seen by Reuters showed on Thursday.

In a letter dated Sept. 22, the ministry recommended that the Election Commission of Pakistan reject the newly formed Milli Muslim League’s (MML) application to become an official party as it is “affiliated” with Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), a militant group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

“The registration of MML is not supported,” the ministry said in the two-page document.

Spokesmen for the election commission and the interior ministry acknowledged the correspondence and confirmed that the letter was authentic.

The United States has designated LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who currently heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Islamic charity, a terrorist. It views him as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his imprisonment.

Saeed is currently under house arrest. Pakistan’s reluctance to press charges against him has been a sore point in relations with Washington and India over the past decade.

The ministry said MML is “ideologically of the same hue” as LeT and its affiliated charities Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Falah-e-Insanyat Foundation (FIF).

Tabish Qayyum, a spokesman for the MML, said in a statement that the ministry’s letter was unlawful.

“MML isn’t a bus or truck which needs registration,” he said, denying that MML had links with any banned militant group.

The ministry’s stance appears at odds with what political sources and a retired army general have said is a plan proposed by the military’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to ‘mainstream’ some Pakistan-based anti-Indian militant groups as part of deradicalisation efforts by bringing them into politics.

The interior ministry’s letter was written a week after MML caused a stir by winning 5 percent of votes in a parliamentary by-election in Lahore on Sept. 17.

The document said foreign countries have raised diplomatic objections to MML’s existence and the interior ministry has sought the opinions of intelligence agencies on the group.

One of the agencies, the ministry said, has warned against letting proscribed and monitored organizations enter politics with a view to gaining legitimacy.

The interior ministry said the security agency has informed it that “given the clamour, philosophy, outreach and modus operandi to operate, it is difficult to believe that MML will tread its own path completely at variance with its mother organisation.”

“Therefore, they have recommended that since the registration of such groups would breed violence and extremism in politics, as such registration of such groups be avoided.”

In the Lahore by-election, Yaqoob Sheikh, who swears loyalty to Saeed, stood as an independent candidate but was backed by MML and had Saeed’s colleagues running his campaign.

Saeed’s portraits adorned posters promoting Sheikh, who the United States has also designated a terrorist and a senior LeT commander.

The London mayoral campaign has been a heated set of campaigns that have focussed on the backgrounds of individuals and on the associations that candidates have had with people whose views have been regarded as ‘repulsive’ and ‘extreme.’ Newspapers have led headlines on associations with extremists and social media activity has suggested that one of the candidates is Islamophobic. Within these charges, the truth has been somewhat lost.

Questioning the links between a candidate and their past associations is legitimate political discourse when someone puts themselves up for a public role such as the mayoral candidate for London. However, framing a candidate who happens to be Muslim just through the lens of extremism at a time when Muslim communities feel that they are trying to counter anti-Muslim tropes, may well have wider and deeper community impacts. This is not to say that questions should not be asked, however, there is much more to Sadiq Khan than his past associations and in the next few weeks, we would urge that the issues be looked, which include transport, housing and the role that London can play as a beacon city globally for financial investment. These are bread and butter issues and Sadiq continues to lay out these plans daily in his campaign. His plans on these bread and butter issues should be engaged with and the continuous focus on whom he associated with ten or more years ago is re-enforcing a view in some quarters, that Muslims as a whole cannot be trusted. This is unacceptable and if anything, may be turning off Muslims who may have considered politics as a future career.

Alternatively, we have seen Twitter campaigners from Labour suggest that Zac Goldmith is Islamophobic. This is a line that has been pushed by a lot of Labour campaigners against the Conservative MP and environmental activist. We have met with and spent time with Zac Goldmith. He is far from being Islamophobic and is reflective and thoughtful and deeply cares about communities. To label him as Islamophobic, undermines the value and the strength of the term and Zac is someone who has spent many years working with faith communities and with Muslim communities. Indeed, he was instrumental in working with the Kingston mosque in tackling the far right who had targeted the mosque and his involvement brought all communities together against far right extremists targeting the local Muslim community. To suggest that Zac Goldsmith is Islamophobic is to suggest that Sadiq Khan may be susceptible to being sympathetic to people with extreme views. Both narratives and suggestions are just obscene.

There are two weeks to go before Londoners go to the poll to elect their London Mayor. In these two weeks, let us focus on the policies of both Zac and Sadiq which can ensure that London remains the great city that it is. Let us vote for the candidate who can further enhance our capital city at an international level and thereby bring in much-needed investment and ensure that housing and transport issues are looked at. That is what we want from a London Mayor and that is what we hope campaigners focus on.

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Slovakia’s ruling party lost its parliamentary majority, and neo-Nazis gained 8 per cent of the vote in Saturday’s election.

More than 200,000 Slovakians voted for the neo-Nazi People’s Party Our Slovakia (L’SNS). That figure includes 23 per cent of first-time voters. Some of the fourteen elected L’SNS MPs were once monitored by the state. But they are now free to express their views in the National Council.

Marian Kotleba, who leads the L’SNS, gained a parliamentary seat. He was elected governor of the Banská Bystrica Region (BBSK) in 2013. Kotleba’s brother, Martin, also gained a seat in parliament. Natália Grausová, another L’SNS MP has defended the Slovak regime which acted as a Nazi satellite in World War II. The Nazis murdered 75,000 Slovak Jews (around 83 per cent of the pre-war total). Deportations stopped after a Vatican representative intervened. But after the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, the SS took control of the fascist Hlinka Guard militia.

Before taking office, Marian Kotleba fashioned himself in the image of the Hlinka Guard. Mr Kotleba established his first political party Slovenska Pospolitost (Slovak Brotherhood) in 2003. The interior ministry banned it in 2006 for its incitement to racial, national and religious hatred.

To mainstream his image required ditching overt fascism. He replaced it with the mainstream dislike of Slovakia’s isolated Roma minority. Police have arrested Kotleba for inciting racial hatred, but he’s escaped conviction.

The anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric of the ruling Smer-SD party helped Kotleba’s party. As did their hostility towards the Roma – securing votes in deprived areas with large Roma communities.

An English-language manifesto rejects EU membership and NATO. The L’SNS wants to form domestic militia groups and allow citizens to own guns. Their populist electoral rhetoric spoke of ‘banishing thieves’ from parliament and supporting ‘white’ families. A focus on Christian identity helps the party externalise Muslims as a threat.

At times, the personality cult around Marian Kotleba overrides that of other party members. Kotleba’s own rhetoric makes clear that the L’SNS seeks to ‘protect our homeland from thieves’. Externalising threats allows them to romanticise the fascism of Jozef Tiso’s Nazi satellite state.

The shift towards neo-Nazi, extremist and nationalist parties is a growing trend in parts of Europe. Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) mirrors the creeping illiberal attitudes of Orban’s Hungary. In Denmark, the People’s Party are the second-largest party in parliament. Polling data put the Sweden Democrats at their highest projected share of the electoral vote at 19.9 per cent. A Median poll put the antisemitic and Islamophobic Jobbik as Hungary’s second-strongest political party at 21 per cent.

Austria’s Freedom Party and Italy’s Lega Nord continue to gain support in opinion polls. In spite of its failures in the final rounds of local elections, the Front National made historic gains in the first-round. This surge owes to their ability to exploit societal anxieties and anger directed at the EU, Muslims and refugees.

The fracturing of Slovakia’s political scene presents a challenge for Mr Fico to form a ruling majority. The surge in support for neo-Nazis caught many pundits off-guard. Other politicians condemned Kotleba’s party. But this only serves to foster their sense of self-victimisation and racist populism.

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