Daily Times

While the masses have been toiling and trying their utmost to come to terms with the heat, dust, humidity, unrelenting power outages, price hikes, poverty etc., the elite has been busy hurling ritual cyclical summer accusations and counter allegations against each other in this theatre of the absurd. The unseating of PTI MPs and the registration of cases against Altaf Hussain barely matter for the masses. After all, how long can the man for all seasons of moneyed politics, Maulana Fazl ur Rehman, with his wit and expertise of political manoeuvres and the verbal somersaults of Altaf Hussain intoxicated with the power of Nine Zero keep the masses bemused with their theatrics and gimmickry?
All this shows that Pakistan’s corrupt and reactionary ruling classes dominate all parties in this political set up. From the Republicans and the National Democratic Alliance to the Convention Muslim League, Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and many faces of the Pakistan Muslim League, including PML-J, PML-Z, PML-F, PML-N and PML-Q, have all played to the whims and needs of the Pakistani bourgeoisie and the military brass. The PPP’s leadership, ever since the 1980s abandoned the working classes and has been striving to cash in its traditional mass support to become a segment of the capitalist political framework. Whether direct military dictatorships or a shameful facade of democratic rule, a nexus of pliant civilian politicians and elites from religious obscurantism to secular liberalism, top bureaucrats, judges and generals has always crystallised to extract financial gains and perks through state power and unleashing super exploitation on the masses.
The PTI is no different. Over the last few years we have witnessed politicians from the same putrid pool somersaulting and landing in the cesspool of the PTI. Imran Khan and the PTI do not have anything to offer the masses. Khan’s answers to complex economic, political, social and strategic problems seem to come straight from military honchos or opinions fabricated by the corporate media. This really is a continuum of the same drudgery, exploitation and misery under this obsolete and parasitic capitalist system.
The verdict of the judicial commission on the May 2013 elections proves the fact that institutions of the state in the last analysis are placed and created to defend the status quo. It seems Khan is oblivious to drawing correct conclusions unlike his wily cousins in the PML-N, who, with extensive expertise of ‘deals’ with the state, managed to sneak into the echelons of power by manipulating and bribing the institutions and individuals that mattered. No doubt, the decisive factor for the autocratic establishment was the tried and tested, ever-complying Nawaz Sharif.
Khan is pandering to urban, educated middle-classes and has been trying to mould himself and the PTI in the shoes of Bhutto and the PPP of 1970. However, the PTI neither had the PPP’s 1970 socialist manifesto nor the revolutionary struggle of the working masses against the military dictatorship of Generac Ayub and Pakistani capitalism. Had there been a genuine revolutionary Leninist party during the 1968-1969 movement we would not have been discussing Khan today. Unlike the PPP of 1970, Khan refuses to solely represent the working classes. The PTI talks about politicians’ assets in foreign banks looted from the people but glaringly omits to mention the money stashed away in Swiss banks by generals, judges, bureaucrats and businessmen. He fails to understand why the parallel economy is three times the size of the official economy and why hardly anybody is paying any taxes apart from the poor masses in the form of sales tax. Ending thana (police station) culture by depoliticising the police and abolishing patwaris is not going to put rotis on the plate for the poor masses let alone access to affordable justice, education and healthcare. Despite boastful proclamations of transforming Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nothing has changed. If anything it has gone from bad to worse for the masses in general.
Now the fissures in the elite of the PTI are opening up. The pie is too small and the contenders too many. Imran Khan suspended the membership of retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad on Wednesday for violating party discipline. As head of the PTI’s election tribunal, Justice Ahmad had found some key leaders involved in selling out posts in party polls. Since March, he had been demanding removal of some top PTI office-bearers, including General Secretary Jahangir Tareen but Mr Khan blatantly refused. Justice Wajih’s response to his suspension was revealing: “The problem is that ‘if you love me then also love my dog’. I have never done it and shall never do it.” On Tuesday, the PTI chairman vented his frustration at the crisis by warning all party members against exposing party issues and said the membership of anyone who violated the order would be cancelled.
However in the first place it was Justice Ahmed’s own misconception that being an ‘honest’ judge he could conduct free and fair elections in a party that runs on the financial and logistical support of these billionaire politicians whose business interests are more dear to them that any ideology or principles. They joined Khan’s bandwagon in the mistaken belief of quick shortcut to power to exploit whatever was possible with which to preserve and expand their wealth. However, for the party that made so many promises and raised hopes in the middle classes, such dissent, crisis and wrangling was inevitable.
In a country with a pulverised society and distorted socio-economic patterns of development based on combined and uneven development of capitalism and outdated feudal relations, the culture becomes disfigured. It tragically ends up exaggerating and inflating the role of an individual. But with the crisis intensifying, leading to more dissatisfaction and disillusionment, an individual even with the greatest of authority cannot retain this unity without ideological or class cohesion. Bonapartist tactics and fear have their own limits. The disillusionment of the masses for the ‘alternative’ is spreading rapidly. This also builds pressure upon those who had staked their money and influence for a party that could catapult them into power. Waiting for 2018 is too long a period in a fragile and uncertain society like Pakistan. Slogans of patriotism, honesty and justice cannot heal the pain of poverty, deprivation and suffering the masses are going through. However these slogans are nothing new and the toiling classes have had enough of them. Their lives have only worsened with the passage of time. Democracy, religion and sovereignty cannot provide food, shelter, health education and justice. They can only be attained through money and the money is with exploiters. In whichever party, these leeches will formulate policies where rich become richer and the poor become even poorer. That is the law under which capitalists can sustain their rates of profit. The PTI’s programme and leaders are part of this very system. How could they ever bring a change to end the plight of the oppressed of the land?

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at lalkhan1956@gmail.com