PAKISTAN, August 6—A wave of coercion from the judiciary, military, and inter-service intelligence agencies has rigged the general elections in favor of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its leader Imran Khan. The PTI has 174 seats in the parliament, effectively forming an absolute majority. The bosses’ infighting is played out on the backs of the working class here. Pakistan, a nuclear power and the world’s sixth most populous country, is positioned at the crosshairs of a U.S. and China rivalry (see editorial, page 2). The country’s outcome has ramifications for the international working class.
Progressive Labor Party is putting our revolutionary line of “don’t vote—revolt” before the masses. The working class needs organize under our red flag to get rid of this barbaric capitalist system by fighting for an international communist revolution.
Terror against working class
Different groups are executing terrorist attacks. Two hundred innocent people have been killed in just the first 15 days of July. It is not uncommon for the losing party to accuse the winning party of rigging the election and to foment violent protests in the streets.
These murders have provided the military grounds to deploy 371,000 troops in order to ensure a “fair and free” election.
“The army was hell-bent upon securing Khan’s victory and even encouraged political parties with overt ties to terrorist groups to field several hundred candidates, alongside some 1,500 candidates tied to Pakistan’s right-wing Islamist parties” (Foreign Affairs, 7/27).
The military has arrested and threatened political rivals, including the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), in the months leading up to the elections. They have also worked to disqualify PML-N candidates from running. The PTI represents the capitalists, feudalists, religious clerks, and retired officials supported by the state.  Left with few options, the army cultivated Khan and his PTI party.
No good capitalist party
Capitalist bosses try to spread the illusion that “capitalism is good but the ruling party is bad so people need to bring a new party to rule them.” But we in Progressive Labor Party are exposing the bosses’ intentions to keep the capitalist system intact by blaming one or other ruling party.
There was censorship of the newspapers, social media and TV channels. The level of interference and political engineering is unprecedented,” said the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan official. The National Accountability Bureau has been described as being used by the state to bring politicians in line by threatening to bring corruption cases against them.
The PML-N’s campaign material was allegedly ripped apart by authorities while leaving PTI campaign materials untouched. There have been suggestions that candidates belonging to PML-N have been coerced to switch parties.
Punjab is the most populous province and remained key to elections. On the last day of scrutiny of nomination papers, seven PML-N candidates from Southern Punjab returned their tickets leaving no option for PML-N to field replacement candidates. This move prevented them the opportunity to win those seats. There have also been reports of election engineering in all provinces. This is nothing new; it happens in every election because capitalists always manipulate elections and manage their parties according to their interests.
Capitalism makes everyone in the ruling class rotten. The system only produces exploitation, poverty, inequality and injustice. Only communist revolution is a way out of this hell and PLP is striving to win the masses to the idea that elections are not a solution for our problems.
Courts protect ruling-class terrorism
The courts and the intelligence agency have been working with the military to elect Khan. In 2017, a corruption investigation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was launched. In response to this, the Supreme Court ousted Sharif disqualified him from holding office under Article 62 of the constitution.
The authorities have also launched an anti-terrorism investigation against PML-N leaders and opened criminal cases against nearly 17,000 party members.
The PTI recently gave 300 million rupees to Madrassa e Haqqaniya, a religious school which is a factory of terrorists. It produced all the terrorists who fought against the USSR and now it is producing “good terrorists” to kill the progressive and working-class people. Terrorism is of course supported by the state. Three terrorist political parties are expected to side with Imran Khan.
Don’t vote—revolt!
Comrades are explaining that the Pakistani state is under the control of brutal capitalist bosses. That’s why nobody can talk against the narrative of terrorist organizations; nobody can raise a question about the internal and external security issues; and nobody is allowed to talk against the false ideology of Islamist organizations. Workers have no right to discuss communism or to criticize capitalism or to talk secularism. But fundamentalists have the right to kill anybody, anywhere and at any time. There is no security for the working class—they are being killed by extremists to spread terror across the country.
We are speaking against the elections with the slogan “Don’t vote—Revolt” in order to convince the masses to forge a struggle for an international communist revolution under the red flag of PLP.
Capitalist bosses are confusing the working class by giving them an opportunity to vote to change their masters. No boss has an agenda to bring prosperity, equality and justice in the lives of workers. Comrades are bringing the working class closer to our line by exposing the reality of elections and the necessity of revolution. Long live international communist revolution and PLP!