Daily Times

The campaign for the elections held on May 11 was perhaps the worst ever from the viewpoint of Pakistan’s oppressed classes. There is hardly any mainstream party that addressed the most burning issue in society: class contradictions and exploitation. None claimed to be a ‘party of the poor’. The religious and right wing parties are overtly aggressive towards society with their reactionary crusades. This is scary in view of the fundamentalism terror chipping in through a reign of terror soaked in bloodshed to brutalise the political culture. In just three months, from January to April, the country has witnessed an average of 600 monthly casualties. The Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Munawar Hassan, issued a stark warning at a recent public meeting held at the Jinnah mausoleum in Karachi. He reportedly said those proclaiming to be liberals should enlist themselves as minorities. He was unambiguous about the Jamaat’s aims; all the citizens of this theoretic state should abide by medieval-era sharia in their social and personal lives.

The right-wing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) peppers its propaganda with religious phrases and has covert links with the fundamentalist outfits. Although some of its leaders pretend to be ‘liberals’, their religious orthodoxy cannot be concealed by such pretentions. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by Imran Khan, has a soft corner for the Islamists in spite of the fact that it started as a liberal outfit mainly attracting middle class youth besides fashionable upper- and middle-class women. Ideologically and socially, the PTI is an amalgam of these contradictions, which lays bare its temporary and fragile existence. The Awami National Party, mainly a Pashtun nationalist party that was once leftish, has of late aligned itself with US imperialism. Hence, it is in a bloody conflict with the Taliban. Over the last five years these reactionary bigots mostly carried out terrorist attacks against its leaders and activists.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) formed on an ethnic basis has been in power for more than 20 years with all the governments since 1988, both military and civilian ones. With its neo-fascist tendencies, it has dominated Karachi and urban Sindh through its mafiosi violence. Intimidation and fear play a central role in maintaining MQM’s hold over Karachi with bloody consequences. The violent disputes in Karachi claimed 2,284 lives in 2012. While the MQM has lost its social base substantially, it has tried to retain its hold through state patronage and armed gangs. However, the Taliban, who are also involved in extortion, kidnappings, and other criminal activities with almost MQM-style methods and networks, has in the recent period challenged the MQM. Ironically, the MQM claims to be a secular party and portrays itself as a victim, rather than an aggressor, of the violence that has plagued Karachi since the 1980s.

The Islamist Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) has been dilly-dallying between Islamic obscurantism and US imperialism. It has completely exposed itself by displaying open and excessive opportunist tendencies to share the plunder through state power. The innumerable adversary Taliban factions and sects drenched in internecine wars have also attacked the JUI election rallies. Then there are dozens of independent candidates who will sell their souls to the highest bidder once they are elected. The tycoons in the formal and the informal (black) economic sectors will rush to buy them for the parties in power who would facilitate their plunder and crime. In reality, all these liberal and religious right-wing parties represent the diverse sections of the ruling classes. None of these parties even claims to represent the working classes.

On the other hand, under Asif Ali Zardari and the capitalist clique over the last five years, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — traditionally perceived as the party of the working classes — has succeeded in what the ruling classes and the two military dictatorships failed to do. It has alienated itself from the working masses. In the process, it is on the verge of losing its traditional base of the party of the oppressed masses. It has canvassed through commercial advertisements in the electronic and the print media, like other right-wing parties, spending billions of rupees dished out by supportive tycoons. The PPP media campaign did not address the miseries afflicting the oppressed classes. It has nothing to vaunt about its five-year rule except some superficial issues, a redundant charity programme or certain constitutional amendments. But such measures hardly matter in the lives of the masses. It has presided over a rapidly declining economy, security, law and order, price hike, unemployment, lack of education, and healthcare.

The ideological shift to the right in the PPP was evident from the awarding of party tickets. While it has forged unholy alliances with the right wing and conservative parties, some of the former petit bourgeois left candidates have allied with the Jamaat-e-Islami and terrorist outfits such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba. Meanwhile, a venomous campaign against the left in the party was conducted. Consequently, the party refused election tickets to Marxists who had stuck by the party’s founding socialist programme with bright chances to defeat the right-wing conservative outfits. The McCarthyism of the imposed clique in the leadership was so vicious that they preferred to lose seats to the religious right in an extremely tight election rather than the Marxists making it to parliament and getting crucial seats for the PPP by defeating the reactionary parties.

One such Marxist is Ghufran Ahad, a candidate for NA-35 Malakand. Others include Riaz Lund [NA-257 Malir, Karachi] and Ilyas Khan [NA-150, Multan]. Ahad was the district mayor of Malakand. He dared stand up to the Taliban and the military aggression in 2009 when most other politicians had fled from the region. He was pivotal in setting up camps for the internally displaced people. He enjoys huge support among the youth and the toilers of Malakand and Swat. Lund raised the PPP vote in this constituency in the proletarian heartland of Karachi, from 17,000 in the 2002 elections to almost 47,000 when he contested in 2008. Khan bagged 27,000 votes in the 1993 elections, when he contested for the provincial assembly in his home constituency. He was a favourite to win the NA-150 seat this time. There are several other such examples. A revolt is brewing against the right-wing leadership of the PPP amongst the ranks and its social base in the working classes.

These elections are not going to change anything. The social and economic crises will worsen in the coming period, escalating the misery and agony of the oppressed masses. When all paths are blocked, the oppressed classes will have no option but to tread onto the path of revolution.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com