All the pro-Left and pro-Right parties should merge into single parties.
JHANG: The Pakistan Peoples Party, when founded, was favoured by all those who were pro-Left in Pakistan. Students, workers, peasants and workers unions gathered under the popular flag of the PPP under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His resistance to dictatorship, visionary leadership, remarkable oration, outright wit, shrewdness and grip on international affairs made him an international leader. However, the PPP, in spite of having the support of the masses, brought about only superficial changes in the system both due to internal and external factors.
The beam of hope started withering. Eventually, Leftist workers, miscalculating the circumstances, sided with religious fanatics against Bhutto. Thus Ziaul Haq was in power.
In 1988, Qaumi Mahaz-e-Azadi, a Maoist party, and the Workers Party, a Stalinist party, merged themselves into the Awami Jamhori Party (AJP) but did not manage to do well in the elections. Its members differed on the issue of whether the party should support Benazir or Nawaz Sharif. In 1986, another pro-PPP group, the Mazdoor Jeddojuhd, was formed. But in 1993, it severed ties with the PPP and formed an independent group named Jeddojuhd Inqlabi Tehrik. In 1997 again, it was renamed as the Labour Party of Pakistan. The Communist Party and the Mazdoor Kissan Party merged in 1994 to form the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party. The AJP, the Pakistan National Party and the Socialist Party, on June 3, 1999, merged to form the National Workers Party. And now, these three parties are the major parties striving for the rights of those who support the Left.
What is the next course now? How have relations between the proletariat and the bourgeois changed in Pakistan? The Left, despite having liberal views, has always remained under attack by the West due to its anti-capitalist approach. The commonality between the Right and the Left is their anti-Americanism because of anti-imperialism. But they are different in delivering public service.
The PTI is pro-right. The PML-N, the JI, the JUI and the PAT are right-wing parties here. On the contrary, the PPP, the ANP, the PML-Q and the MQM have Leftist beliefs. There are other nationalist parties as well with mixed philosophies. The solution of the political crisis in Pakistan lies in a simple, two-party solution. All the pro-Left and pro-Right parties should merge into single parties. The PPP and the PML-N can be two broader parties. The PPP, being liberal, pro-Left and broadly a poor man’s party, can play a pivotal role in changing the circumstances of the masses if it is able to get rid of the blames levelled on it. It can go back to its egalitarian roots and change the destiny of this war-trodden and economically stung nation by introducing a social safety net, free healthcare, subsidised housing, food support, and free education, trade unions, securing the rights of farmers, alleviating poverty, income redistribution, etc.
Zulqarnain Sewag
Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2014.
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