The Pakistan People's Party is a centre-left political party in Pakistan. It is currently the first-largest party in the Senate and third-largest party in the National Assembly. The party was founded in 1967 in Lahore, when a number of prominent left-wing politicians in the country joined hands against the military rule of president Muhammad Ayub Khan, under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. It is affiliated with the Socialist International. The PPP's platform was formerly socialist, and its stated priorities continue to include transforming Pakistan into a social-democratic state, promoting egalitarian values, establishing social justice, and maintaining a strong military. The party, alongside the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, is one of the three largest political parties of Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami, or Jamaat as it is commonly known, is an Islamist political party based in Pakistan and founded by Abul Ala Maududi. It is the Pakistani successor to Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in colonial India in 1941. Its objective is the transformation of Pakistan into an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law, through a gradual legal, and political process. JI strongly opposes capitalism, communism, liberalism, and secularism as well as economic practices such as offering bank interest. JI is a 'vanguard party', whose members are intended to be leaders spreading party beliefs and influence. Supporters not thought qualified to be members may become 'affiliates', and beneath them are 'sympathizers'. The party leader is called an 'ameer'. Although it does not have a large popular following, the party is quite influential and considered one of the major Islamic movements in Pakistan, along with Deobandi and Barelvi.
The Communist Party of Pakistan is a communist party in Pakistan founded in 1948 by Sajjad Zaheer.
The National Awami Party (NAP), translated from Urdu to English as National People's Party, was the major left-wing political party in East and West Pakistan. It was founded in 1957 in Dhaka, erstwhile East Pakistan, by Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Yar Mohammad Khan, through the merger of various leftist and progressive political groups in Pakistan. Commonly known as the NAP, it was a major opposition party to Pakistani military regimes for much of the late 1950s and mid-1960s. In 1967 the party split into two factions.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is a far-left, Marxist–Leninist–Maoist revolutionary organization and communist party in the Philippines, formed by Jose Maria Sison on 26 December 1968. It is designated as a terrorist group by the United States Department of State together with Sison and its armed wing New People's Army (NPA) in 2002. The European Union renewed its terrorist designation on the organization in 2019, though a 2009 ruling by the EU's second highest court delisted Sison as a "person supporting terrorism" and reversed a decision by member governments to freeze assets. According to the US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook, the CPP and the NPA aims to destabilize the Philippines' economy and overthrow the national government.
The National Students Federation Pakistan (NSF) is a left-wing students federation in Pakistan. In the late 1960s, NSF adopted the political line of Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.
The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), Urdu: اتحاد برائے بحالی جمہوریت, was a political alliance in Pakistan founded in 1981 by the political parties opposing the military government of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the sixth president of Pakistan. Headed by Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party, its objective was the end of martial law and restoration of the democracy.
Afrasiab Khattak is a Pakistani socialist politician and political analyst who is a senior leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM). He formerly was a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). He has formerly served as the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), a member of the Senate of Pakistan (2009–2014), and the provincial president of the Awami National Party (ANP). He is an activist in the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
The Mazdoor Kisan Party is a communist party in Pakistan. It was founded on 1 May 1968 by Afzal Bangash and Sher Ali Bacha. Other prominent leaders included Ishaq Muhammad and Imtiaz Alam. In the 1970s, the MKP led a militant communist movement in Hashtnagar, Charsadda District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Jam Saqi popularly known as Comrade Jam Saqi, was a left-wing politician from Sindh, Pakistan. He was previously the general secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan. Saqi was imprisoned for more than 15 years due to his political activities. During his period in jail his then wife, Sukhan, had committed suicide after reading a newspaper containing allegations of Jam Saqi's death. He then left the Communist Party in 1991 and joined the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Trotskyist The Struggle group. He was married to Akhtar Sultana.
Abid Hassan Minto also known as Abid Minto is a constitutional expert and senior lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and former president of the Awami Workers Party. He is also a literary critic and a leftwing civic and political leader. His legal career spans over 50 years during which he was elected member of the Pakistan Bar Council from 1966 up to 1983; President, Lahore High Court Bar Association (1982); Chairman, National Coordination Committee of Lawyers and President, Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan (SCBA).
The Jam Saqi trial, was a political and judicial program in the history of Pakistan marked by a rise of widespread fear of expansion of communism and the socialism. There were series of federal investigations led by the FIA and federal prosecution trials conducted by the specialized military courts in which the leaders of the communist and socialist parties were accused of plotting to overthrow the military government in order to install a socialist system.
The influences of socialism and socialist movements in Pakistan have taken many different forms as a counterpart to political conservatism, from the groups like The Struggle, Lal Salam which is the Pakistani section of the International Marxist Tendency, to the Stalinist group like Communist Party through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the birth of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
Communism in the Philippines emerged in the first half of the 20th century during the American Colonial Era of the Philippines. Communist movements originated in labor unions and peasant groups. The communist movement has had multiple periods of popularity and relevance to the national affairs of the country, most notably during the Second World War and the Martial Law Era of the Philippines. Currently the communist movement is underground and considered an insurgent movement by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The Jeay Sindh Students’ Federation (JSMM) Sindhi: abbreviated as JSSF JSMM, is the student wing of various separatist organizations struggling for the freedom of Sindhudesh following the ideology of G. M. Syed, founded in 1969. JSSF was a nationalist outfit which emerged from Anti-Unitary System Struggle in the late 1960s and later joined G. M. Syed in his ideology of a separate homeland for Sindhis in 1972. Since then, it has been working as the students’ front of the Jeay Sindh or Sindhudesh movement.
Fanoos Gujjar, was a left-wing Pakistani politician from Buner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He was the founding chairperson and president of Awami Workers Party. He spent his life in grass root struggle for the rights of minorities, workers, peasants, women and students.
Ismat Raza Shahjahan is a socialist-feminist political leader from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. She is the president of Women Democratic Front (WDF), the deputy general-secretary of the Awami Workers Party (AWP), and a leading member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
Progressive Students Federation (PrSF) is a left-wing socialist students’ organisation based in Pakistan. PrSF was formed in 2014 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but was later joined various factions of National Students Federation in Punjab and Sindh. The organisation has mobilised students and youth all over Pakistan for democratisation of campuses, restoration of student unions and universal education.
Akhtar Hussain is a Pakistani lawyer, senior advocate of Supreme Court of Pakistan and left wing political leader. He is president of the left-wing political party, Awami Workers Party. He served as the General Secretary of Awami Workers Party from 2016 to 2022. He stayed member of Pakistan Bar Council for ten years from 2010 to 2020 and elected as Vice Chairman in 2012. He was a member of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan for two years from 2019 to 2021.
