14 social International resistance
Winter 2002 Farooq Tariq, General Secretary Labour Party Pakistan
Air Zafarulah Jamali, a feudal lord from Baluchistan is been elected as prime minister of Pakistan today on 2lst November 2002 by the national assembly in Islamabad.
After months of planning to install a puppet government, the military regime had at last just succeeded. Thanks to the break away group of 10 from Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, Jamali was able to command 172 votes, the required number for a majority in the parliament.
In the latest elections for the post of prime minister the fundamentalist Fazal Rehman came second with 86 and the Pakistan Peoples Party candidate came third with 70 votes. Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League, with 18 members in the house, supported the religious fundamentalists.
Mir Jamali was formerly from a pro Musharaf conservative Muslim League (Q) group, which has been set up with the massive support of the military regime. MLQ is a split from Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was overthrown by the present military ruler General Musharaf in a bloodless military coup in October 1999.
General Musharaf has since enhanced himself as president of Pakistan with an unprecedented dictatorial power.
In 1977 during the initial era of General Zia-ul Haq, Mir Jamali deprived peasants of the land allotted to them by the previous government. Along with other armed persons he attacked the peasants 10 of whom were killed. Many political workers from Sindh and Baluchistan sit on hunger strike as protest. They were arrested and jailed in Much Jail by Zia-ul Haq regime.
•• • • Still keeping the reins of real power in his grip: Musharaf
Jamali also dissolved a provincial assembly in 1988 while he was chief minister of the Baluchistan assembly.
He is a perfect choice of the military ruler, who could be trustworthy in any crisis period. In his first speech after being elected as MP Mir Jamali declared his full support to the economic and political reforms of the present regime. A long list of feudal lords have ruled
Pakistan since 1947, although for half of the period since independence it has been ruled by the military generals. There has been a very strange mixture of feudal and so called local capitalists. The feudalists would like to go hand in Pwi hand with the capitalists - and vice versa.
The military generals have also become feudalists: in fact they are more feudal than the originals. The feudal lords' history goes back to the 200 years of British colonisation of the Indian Sub Continent. The land was allotted to anyone who sided with the British in crucial and critical times.
A lot of criticism of the military regime has been expressed by PPP and MMA - the main alliance of the religious fundamentalists - in the first two sessions of the newty elected parliament.
But the opposition PPP and MMA have not said anything about the economic reform agenda of the military regime: in fact, they have supported it at different were able to fetch the most seats in the two provinces
The popularity of the religious parties was seen at the time of the funeral of Aimal Kansi in Quetta Afghanistan on 19th November, said to be the largest in the history of Baluchistan: over 70,000 attended the funeral procession.
Aimal Kansi's death sentence was carried out in US last week after he pleaded guilty to killing two American CIA agents in 1993.
The new jamali regime will carry out anti worker and anti peasant policies dictated by the IMF and World Bank. Despite all the claims of the Musharaf regime that economy is on the right track and a new era of economic development has started, it has made no improvement on the lives of the working class in Pakistan.
cording to one report, over A
seven million had become poorer after three years of the Musharaf regime because of the so-called reform agenda. Over 40 percent of the total population lives below the poverty line. Less than 20 percent are literate. More than 80 per cent of the total annual budget goes to repayments of the debts and defense expenditure.
The Jamali regime will not be different from the previous civil governments who were installed as a transition to democracy. General Musharaf has brought all the necessary amendments in the constitution to continue as president of Pakistan. He has more dictatorial powers than any other dictator of Pakistan. Despite all these safeguards, there is no guarantee that he can rule his full five years as president. So is the case with his puppet civil government.
A new era of political uncertainty has started already from the first day of the Jamali regime. Many ask how long this government can last. With the presence of strong religious fundamentalists in parlia ment and a rather strong group of PPP, there is not much room for manoeuvre on the part of the Jamali regime.
There is a real prospect of more popularity for the fundamentalists; they appear, at least in words to have changed from a pro-imperialist to an