ISLAMABAD: The Awami Workers Party (AWP) will field 21 candidates for 22 national and provincial assembly seats across the country in the upcoming elections.

The seats include eight national and 14 provincial assembly seats; 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, four from Sindh, two from Punjab and two from Islamabad.

Candidates include AWP federal president Fanoos Gujjar, who will be contesting the NA-9 (Buner) seat, peasants secretary Hassan Askari for PS-41 (Sanghar) and deputy secretary general Ismat Raza Shahjahan for NA-54 in Islamabad.

“The party’s participation this year marks the first time that the socialist left has contested the general elections in an organised fashion since the left was forced underground and decimated under the dictatorship of Gen Zia,” Mr Gujjar said.

The AWP has already issued its election manifesto, according to which the AWP “seeks to abolish the monopoly over the country’s wealth illegitimately held by a tiny number of capitalists, and eradicate all forms of class, gender and ethnic discrimination through the establishment of a welfare state”.

The manifesto consists of 15 policy themes. It proposes a maximum limit on agricultural land ownership and the distribution of excess and unutilised private land among landless peasants and farm workers, funding low cost housing, legalising informal katchi abadis, a minimum wage of Rs30,000 per month and a minimum representation of 33pc for women in all elected bodies.

It also proposes spending 10pc of the GDP on government education and health expenditure, including the provision of free education up to the university level.

NA-54 candidate Ms Shahjahan said: “Our rival parties treat elections like a financial investment in which rich capitalists use their wealth to gain political power, which allows them to further expand their wealth.

“On the other hand, AWP candidates like myself are running their campaigns on small donations made by their constituents based on the goodwill generated through decades of working and organising in local communities. While the others rely on the millions of rupees they have illegitimately hoarded, we rely on the millions of working men and women of all ethnicities with whom we have struggled for so long.”

The party’s candidate for NA-53, Ammar Rashid, who stands against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said: “Since the party was established in 2012, our political focus has been on resistance to state exploitation and oppression.”

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2018