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Musharraf resigns to avoid impeachment

The resignation of Pervez Musharraf brings to a close nearly a decade of Pakistani politics, marked by attacks on democratic and anti-imperialist forces at home and adaptation to the commands of US imperialism abroad.

In the end Musharraf alienated not only his own people but his imperialist masters as well. Ostensibly his resignation has been forced by the new civilian government’s decision to begin impeachment proceedings. Despite their slight chances of success slight, the very process would have thrown light into places that the Pakistani military would much rather keep dark. Also Musharraf was in no a position to declare another state of emergency, so soon after the failure of the last one. The masses would have been in no mood to accept this, given spiraling food and fuel prices. The economic problems in Pakistan are rising, with most of the country suffering a regime of daily power cuts, lasting hours. This affects peoples home and working lives and no plans have been launched to serious improve the electricity supply. But with Musharraf gone a major factor that united the rival governing parties, has gone too.

Pakistan – a land of contradictions

If you are walking through the streets of Lahore and you observe a highly equipped and very expensive Japanese car crossing a wooded wagon pulled by a donkey you begin to understand what Leon Trotsky was describing by talking of the law of combined and uneven development. This superficial observation has its material background. The ‘uneven’ part of this law lies in the fact that there are class forces from different stages of the historical development of property relations at the same time. The countryside is dominated by agricultural production that is often organized in a semi-feudal way and is hardly mechanized at all. But then there are also industrial centers, in and close to the big cities, with a high concentration of workers. In addition to that there are also centers of modern finance capital, especially the Karachi Stock Exchange. In the KSE-100 index 15 of the top 30 are banks or insurance companies. These 15 companies account for 39.12 per cent of the total index.

In the last on and a half years these different class forces precisely ìcombined’ to protest against the military regime. Major parts of the bourgeois establishment (especially the radicalized younger lawyers and some of the top judges) were protesting against the dismissal of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary. The different demonstrations and rallies were partly supported by the two main bourgeois parties – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Narwaz (PML-N). But these protests were also increasingly drawing in working class forces that were connecting the question of democratic reforms with the question of their shrinking wages and falling living standards.Added to this the massive price hikes (especially of food), the increasing clashes between Islamic forces and army in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), the sharp clashes between the PPP and the PML-N over whether to re-instate Chaudhary, have prevented any solid or lasting stabilization over the last months.

Western journalists and politicians are now arguing that these problems could be solved if the “democratic” forces succeed. When the PPP government announced plans to impeach Musharraf many people became every excited about the possibility of “democracy” finally triumphing over the military. But working class forces should not have any illusions on this score. The PPP didn’t announce the impeachment because of their democratic principles but because of the pressures of a movement that has strong sympathy in the Pakistani masses. It is clear that this movement wanted Musharraf to go. Also it was a deflection of attention from the issue of reinstating Chaudhary who the PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, has good reason to believe might pursue corruption charges against him.

Musharraf himself was obviously terrified the masses would mobilise behind the call for his impeachment. The ruling class as a whole was also concerned with the possibility that sections of the working class, in alliance with the middle classes (such as the lawyers) would come back onto the streets and the movement would not limit itself to ousting Musharraf but raise economic and antiwar demands. Thus not only the military, but also the ‘democratic’ PPP-led government would become their target. The military is obviously weakened, for the time being unable to impose its will on the country through martial law as. So a sacrifice had to be made to preserve the rule of the bourgeois government in Islamabad. An important factor in the whole process is the Bush administration is convinced that the PPP, in particular, is its most reliable ally. This government alone, it believes, can get the Pakistan military to wage a consistent and effective war against Afghan resistance fighters along the border with that country and purge the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) of islamist sympathizers. US and British forces are suffering mounting casualties and their puppet regime is coming under increasing resistance.But mass mobilisations by the workers and the urban poor are still at the top of the agenda, not only to preserve democratic rights but also against the attacks on their living standards and working conditions. The peasants too must be organised to take over the land in a fight against the landlords. These struggles will lead to a direct fight with the government, with the PPP and its PML-N allies. This is why the building of an independent working class party, based on a revolutionary programme, fighting not only for democracy but also for the overthrow of capitalism, is still the major task of socialist forces in Pakistan today.

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