By
Keith Jones
13 May 2013
Pakistani voters decisively repudiated the country’s outgoing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led government, which for five years served as a pliant instrument of US imperialism, extending the AfPak War across northwestern Pakistan and imposing IMF austerity measures.
Official results of Saturday’s national and four provincial assembly elections are not expected for several more days. But unofficial partial returns indicate that the PPP’s traditional electoral rival, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML (N), will obtain a strong plurality or possibly a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. The PML (N) also retained control over the government of the Punjab, home to 60 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people.
Both Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly congratulated PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif on his victory. A right-wing industrialist, Sharif twice before served as Pakistan’s prime minister, only to be ousted by the military.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI–Pakistan Movement for Justice) of former cricket star Imran Khan also did well. The PTI had long been an also-ran in Pakistani politics. However, in 2011 Khan began staging rallies denouncing US drone strikes that have killed thousands of civilians and terrorized Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Khan also vowed to lead a “revolution” to end corruption and create an “Islamic welfare state.”
Khan welcomed prominent businessmen and renegade PPP and PML (N) leaders into his party, while making clear that he is eager for Pakistan to retain close relations with Washington. Under conditions where the PPP, Pakistan’s main bourgeois “left” party, and its pseudo-left allies deepened the country’s alignment with US imperialism, Khan’s denunciations of illegal U.S. drone strikes struck a popular chord, especially among urban youth.
The PTI, which hitherto had only ever won a single National Assembly seat, might force the PPP into third place in the National Assembly. It is the largest party in Khyber Pashtunkhwa (KP) province, which adjoins the FATA.
Concerned about the surge in PTI support, Sharif has made limited anti-drone strike statements, announcing that “options” other than “guns and bullets…need to be explored” to end the AfPak war.
The elections represent an historic defeat for the Pakistan
This article originally appeared on : World Socialist Web Site