Islamabad,
2nd November 2012 – Three leftist parties, Awami Party Pakistan, Labour
Party Pakistan and Worker’s Party Pakistan, will formally merge into a
new party called the Awami Workers Party on November 11 as a first step
towards building an alternative to the status quo which has brought
Pakistani state and society to the brink of collapse. This was stated by
leaders of the three parties at a press conference held on Friday at
the Islamabad Hotel.
Speaking to reporters, Workers Party
leader Abid Hasan Minto said that the institutions of the state are
fragmenting, and often completely at odds with one another. Democratic
institutions remain weak and underdeveloped in comparison to the
military establishment and civil bureaucracy. The increasingly untenable
situation in Balochistan indicates a wider crisis of the federation,
thus confirming that our ruling class has learnt little from the
secession of east Pakistan in 1971. Finally the state continues to
maintain a confrontational and interventionist posture vis a vis
neighbouring countries, which serves only to isolate Pakistan and
exacerbate internal divisions.
Minto said that the divisions
within Pakistan society are quickly becoming irreconcilable. Conflicts
along class, ethnic, sectarian, gender and other lines seem to be
getting more acute on a daily basis. Violence is commonplace and the
cultures of tolerance and harmony that have persisted for thousands of
years in the region are increasingly marginalized. Both imperialist
powers and religious militants constitute a constant threat to life,
livelihood and indigenous culture
Finally, Minto pointed out
that governmental performance is abject. The economy is afloat only on
borrowed money and time, with the State Bank printing almost Rs. 1
trillion a year simply to meet foreign debt obligations. Delivery of
basic services such as health, education, transport, housing and
drinking water has effectively been handed over to profiteers with
personal links to state functionaries. Justice remains a pipe dream.
Leader of the Awami Party Fanoos Gujjar said that the mainstream
political parties that are supposed to both analyse the root causes of
these various crises and then devise workable policies to redress them
are neither able nor willing to do so. Indeed many of these parties
still remain accomplices of the military establishment. Mainstream
political discourse is little more than mumbo jumbo while the business
of politics is to extend unequal and unjust patronage and power
networks.
Gujjar continued that the establishment and complicit
political elite sustain neo-colonial state and retrogressive, feudal
social structures within Pakistan under the guise of defending the
‘greater national interest’. This oppressive structure of power has been
further consolidated by capitalist globalization and thus the
impoverishment and division of Pakistan’s working people deepens.
Progressive and left political parties throughout Pakistan’s history
have always striven to transform these obsolete structures and
democratize state and society, whilst also struggling for
democratization of the imperialist world order. In return the left has
had to contend with untold state repression and reaction from the rich
and powerful at all levels of Pakistani society. Today, the state’s
reactionary policies have become a Frankenstein that is increasingly
impossible to control, class and gender oppression have deepened, while
the denial of federalism has ensured the rise and strengthening of
centrifugal tendencies.
Farooq Tariq of the Labour Party said
that all of Pakistan’s myriad crises today, both internal and external,
can be addressed only by bringing together all progressive,
anti-imperialist, anti-establishment, secular political forces so as to
embark on a long-term struggle towards a socialist society, free from
exploitation of all kinds. He said working people need a political party
that not only serves up rhetoric of change but can also provide a
workable political programme to deliver change on the basis of the
countervailing power of the Pakistani people. The left and progressive
forces have made many sacrifices for the establishment of democracy in
Pakistan but until this day the working masses of this country have not
benefited from the fruits of genuine democracy. The Awami Workers Party
is committed to the establishment of real democracy – political and
economic – free from the influences of the military, imperialist powers,
and a self-serving elite in which all members of society can secure
their fundamental freedoms and develop their creative potentialities.
Farooq Tariq concluded by asserting that the Awami Workers Party is not
a party of landlords, capitalists, generals or mullahs, but the
downtrodden and long-suffering mass of working people. He said that
AWP’s politics may not be welcome to the ruling elite, but it is the
only politics that can extricate state and society from the current
quagmire because only by transcending the feudal and capitalist order
and the shift to a socialist system will the crises of Pakistani state
and society be resolved.
In closing the leaders of the new party summarized the AWP party program:
Redressal of the state’s hostile policy towards neighbouring countries
which has been used to justify the military establishment’s economic
and political power.
Recognition of Pakistan’s multinational
essence and the establishment of a genuine federal system based on the
right of self-determination for all nations.
Break from the dictates of multinational capital and imperialism in all its forms.
Replace existing and oppressive state institutions with those that
provide for basic needs and are fundamentally democratic in their
functioning.
Immediate implementation of all existing land reform legislations and elimination of feudal social power in all its forms.
During questions and answers a firm stand against Kalabagh Dam was
asserted, and it was pointed out that the party will run for elections
but will also continue to build upon the historic traditions of the left
in mobilizing workers, peasants, students and women. This, the leaders
of AWP said, is the only way to truly challenge the machinations of the
establishment.
