Search
Close this search box.

Fight for a constituent assembly

Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf was in a dire situation this summer. Having suspended the country’s Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in March, his regime was destabilised by the huge street protests and a 48-hour general strike, mobilised to resist this decision. This movement started amongst lawyers, but was soon joined by the workers and the urban poor. Protesters numbered tens of thousands, waves of strike action called by unions close to the opposition parties shut the country down. Armed clashes erupted between pro- and anti-Musharraf forces.

At the same time Musharraf’s backer George Bush was displeased with him because of the free rein he felt the Pakistan military was giving the Afghan insurgents in the northern tribal areas of Pakistan. Under his pressure Musharraf moved to crush the Taliban in the border areas and targeted pro-jihadi Islamists based in Islamabad’s Red Mosque. The carnage which took place during attack on the Mosque, with hundreds were killed, represented a blow to part of the president’s traditional power base. Pakistan’s military has always relied on its islamic credentials for legitimisation. This relationship, strained after 11 September 2001, has now broken as the successful suicide attacks on the armed forces over the last month of so have demonstrated.

In August too the Supreme Court reinstated Chaudhry and allowed a series of political dissidents to return to Pakistan, including ex-President Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf must now stand for re-election between 15 September and 15 October since all his attempts to get around this by pressurizing the judiciary have spectacularly failed. The US has also demanded “free and fair elections.”

This turn of events has obliged Musharraf to search for support amongst the popular “pro-democracy forces.” In effect this means turning to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) whose leader Benazir Bhutto’s actually supported, “critically”, the Red Mosque massacre and then entered negotiations with Musharraf on a power sharing deal. However this has caused ructions within the PPP. Negotiations have repeatedly broken down because of the PPP’s insistence that Musharraf cannot remain both head of state and head of the armed forces, and must renounce the power to dismiss parliament. Bhutto has said she will return, with or without an agreement with the president, probably in October, in time for the elections.

In contrast to the PPP, the conservative islamic parrty of Nawaz Sharif the PML-N has talked openly of the need for a ‘decisive struggle’ against the military and street protests to bring regime change. In returning to Pakistan on 10 September Sharif can present himself as the last democratically elected leader. In being more unequivocal in its opposition to Musharraf, the PML-N hopes to win wider support from both islamic and pro-democracy voters.

But Sharif offers no genuine alternative to the masses. His last government was ferociously right wing and a disaster for the working class. As an economic crisis gripped the country Sharif made the masses pay for it with 100,000 workers sacked, food subsidies slashed and utility bills soaring – while Sharif and his supporters pocketed millions from state coffers.

We have said from the outset that the lawyers movement had the potential to link up with the masses, bring down the regime, and create the possibility for a revolutionary struggle for power by the working class. Clearly, this potential still exists. The overthrow of the military regime remains an immediate question. Indeed, it is more isolated and vulnerable than ever. But we cannot ignore that there are, at the same time, powerful counter-revolutionary forces.

Forces of counterrevolution

One form of the counterrevolution is rise of the islamist militants who attack leftists and women who refuse to abide by their interpretation of Sharia. Despite the fact that the so-called Taliban resistance in Afghanistan and the border regions must be supported insofar as they are fighting US and British imperialism, in domestic Pakistani politics they are a completely reactionary force.

However at the moment a “democratic counterrevolution” is the more immediate danger. A deal between the PPP and Musharraf, endorsed by elections, which are a sort of plebiscite, could be used to demobilise the masses, confuse the working class vanguard and continue the enslavement of Pakistan to the US imperialism. Benazir Bhutto could then use her a ‘democratic mandate’ both to attack the working class and prosecute more aggressively US imperialism’s war in Afghanistan and the border areas. This would be a real setback and defeat for the masses from which only the islamists, given a martyr’s halo, would be the long term beneficiaries. This would be equally true if Nawaz Sharif were to win, despite his present demagogic attacks on US policy, he also talks of the need for a ‘constructive relationship.’with Washington.

The way forward

Ultimately, any party that does not link the democratic struggle to a workers’ revolution and socialism will be unable to liberate Pakistan from the yoke of corruption or military rule. Pakistan has been ruled by the military for forty out of its sixty years of existence, in which time the military has developed powerful economic interests, a process that has deepened over the last eight years.

All now depends on the masses – their politics, leadership and organisation. The movement of lawyers was able to rally mass forces but is now divided on how to continue. Its right wing argues that the struggle finished with Chaudhry’s reinstatement, while its left wing insists on continuing to fight for the overthrow of the regime. The revolutionary situation is far from over. Indeed, there is no easy, “stable” way out for the Pakistan ruling class, bourgeois parties and military – given the crisis of the war in Afghanistan and the border regions, the anti-neo liberal demands of the masses – not to mention, the effects a world recession in the coming period would have too. Nevertheless, clearly counter-revolutionary forces compete with the revolutionary ones.

It is now more urgent than ever the most advanced, radical sections of the poor, the democarcy movement and the working class unite in a revolutionary party that can fight for a workers and peasant government, based on democratic workers and peasants councils.

Content

You should also read
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram