Pakistan

The greatly acclaimed democratic coalition government of Pakistan has fallen, just a mere 41 days since it came into office. Sharif has pulled out his ministers officially over the question of the judiciary. The real reason lies deep in the bowels of society, where millions of Pakistani workers and peasants are facing intolerable conditions.

May Day in Pakistan saw rallies, meetings and seminars the length and breadth of the country, where the PTUDC, the BNT, YFIS-Pakistan, the comrades of The Struggle and many other youth and trade union organisations participating with a militant and determined mood.

The capitalist system, which has been lowering the living conditions of the working class during the last 15 to 20 years of boom has now entered a slump, which will make the situation of the toiling masses even worse. The struggle against this system can only be waged with a programme, ideology, and strategy of completely changing the system. This is the message of May Day 2008.

This is the editorial statement of The Struggle issue 1-15 April 2008. It points out that the coming to an end of the Musharraf dictatorship and the installation of a coalition government is not the end of the struggle, only its beginning.

Pakistan's infrastructure is in a state of collapse. Instead of things getting better, they are getting worse. Power cuts are severely affecting the livelihood of many workers. In Multan this has erupted in militant action which has been met by police opening fire on unarmed workers.

On February 29 the Karachi regional conference of the Pakistani Marxists was held with 350 present, their biggest ever gathering. At the meeting there was a balance sheet of the recent election campaign and we reproduce here the speeches of the comrades who stood for parliament, Lund, Wazi and Manzoor.

On Saturday February 23rd over 10 supporters of the PTUDC in Montreal attended a workshop about the recent elections in Pakistan. The workshop was hosted by the International Marxist Tendency.

The murder of Benazir Bhutto and the rigged elections in Pakistan have opened up a period of turmoil in the country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused an unprecedented instability that is undermining an already shaky equilibrium. The whole region could catch fire as classes come into conflict. Here is an appraisal of the situation in the Editor's note of the upcoming issue of the Asian Marxist Review.

A motion of affiliation to the PTUDC was successfully passed at the meeting of the University of East Anglia Union Council on 21st February. The Union is now officially affiliated and an emergency motion on Pakistan was also passed to be sent to the NUS Executive in time for the National Conference.

Over a dozen people attended a meeting on the recent fraudulent elections in Pakistan on a cold blustery Toronto evening. The meeting was hosted by Canadian supporters of the Pakistani Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC), the first such meeting to date in Canada.

Now that they have blatantly manipulated the results, the main parties in Pakistan are working towards the formation of a coalition government. This is what the imperialist wanted all along. It is also what the right wing of the PPP wanted as well. But the masses are waiting for concrete results, an end to their misery. On this path we will see class polarisation within the PPP itself, which will prepare the ground for the intervention of the Marxists.

We received this synopsis of major complaints received about serious irregularities during Monday's election. It clearly shows that these elections were neither fair nor democratic. The result was decided beforehand and was designed to get the political scenario that imperialism requires to govern Pakistan. They can rig the result, but they cannot falsify the real misery that people in Pakistan have to suffer!