By K Govindan BENAZIR BHUTTO has again become Prime Minister of Pakistan and seems likely to form its next government amid fears that her administration will be as short-lived as her predecessors.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) along with its motiey group of allies have the 109 seats needed to guarantee control of the Federal legislature.
He arch-rival and the previous Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who leads the majority faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) is trailing the PPP but only just.
Punjab
While Bhutto swept the provincial elections in her native Sindh it was her strong showing in the crucial Punjab province which demolished Nawaz Sharif's hopes.
Punjab is not only the most populous province it also supplies the higher echelons of the army and the state bureaucracy, dominating the rest The main working class centres Karachi and Hyderabad returned members belonging to the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) who are now allies of Nawaz Sahrif.
It explodes the myth of the creation oi Pakistan as a muslim nation-state that the MQM which represents those who migrated from India during the Partition grows in tandem with their A disparate community drawn from all parts of the sub-continent, the Mohajirs feel thay are discriminated against and marginalised at all levels of society.
Confounding the expectations of the election authorities there was a low turnout for the polls of between 40-50 per cent. Kathy Evans writing in the Observer helps explain why.
'For many Pakistanis, the change of government (is) just another round of musical chairs among a group of elite feudal landowners, big businessmen and drug traffickers who dominate the system and conduct politics from the drawing rooms of Islamabad and Lahore'.
Prior to the elections there were many demonstrations in protest the hot seat: Benazir Bhutto faces problems as Premier a former World Bank official. rol. tered politics and is now one of been a sham since it brought against the economic reforms of the caretaker regime of Moeen Qureshi -The reforms led to huge price increases for bread, cooking oil and petMeanwhile Nwaz Sahrif's family company, Ittefaq, had its turnover multiply ten-fold over the period he enPakistan's largest conglomerates.
Poor record Benazir Bhutto's record is hardly better. None of the most heinous antiwoman legislation introduced by the dictator, General Zia-Ul-Haq, were repealed during her last term in office.
The populist image of the PPP has Asia. Benazir's ill-fated father to power in sistance. the 1970s. It has never challenged the economic system which is weighted in favour of the rich. Trade union rights were steadily eroded to suppress working class militancy.
In fact, Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari, is popularly known in Pakistan as 'Mr Ten Percent' - the reputed size of his commission in any business dealings with his wife's government.
The Pakistani left which has cowered in the PPP for so long should note a recent events in Bangladesh. Here 10 left-wing organisations have grouped themselves into an alliance asserting their class independence. They have a long way to go before they become a mass force but this is an extremely positive step for the working class and toilers of South