Pakistan’s Crisis and the Need for a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly

Pakistan's constitutional crisis requires a revolutionary solution

The End of the Constitutional Equilibrium

Pakistan is currently undergoing a profound constitutional crisis. This is not a temporary distortion but rather the historic disintegration of the constitutional framework of the capitalist order. Over the past two years, the state has systematically dismantled the 1973 Constitution, culminating in the 26th and 27th amendments, which have placed all institutions under a Bonapartist center of power.

The constitution, once nominally seen as a pact among federal units and a framework for parliamentary democracy, has now been transformed into a mask for authoritarianism. The constitutional form remains, but its democratic content has been emptied. Parliament legislates under pressure, the courts provide legal justification for repression, and provincial autonomy has been subordinated to the coercive demands of centralization.

This is the moment Karl Marx described in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852):

“The executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its wide-ranging and ingenious state machinery, with a host of officials numbering half a million (besides an army of another half million) — this terrifying parasitic body enmeshes the body of French society and chokes all its pores.”

Pakistan’s current state structure mirrors precisely this Bonapartist framework, a state that claims neutrality yet suspends class struggle in the name of “law and order.”

Bonapartism and Pakistan’s Class Contradictions

Bonapartism does not arise in a vacuum. It is the outcome of a specific historical stalemate in class relations. When the bourgeoisie loses the ability to govern democratically, and the working class is not yet organized enough to seize power, the state emerges as an “arbiter.”

In Pakistan, the alliance between military-bureaucratic power and the capitalist elite has produced a composite ruling bloc. Economically, it depends on global capital — IMF programs, debt, and geopolitical rents — and politically, on institutions that maintain internal discipline.

The failure, corruption, and generally poor public perception of the political parties have created a social vacuum in which Bonapartism has flourished.

As Antonio Gramsci wrote in his Prison Notebooks, in such “organic crises,” forms of authoritarianism or Caesarism arise — when a powerful individual or institution intervenes to preserve a decaying system. In Pakistan, the Bonapartist regime is presented under the guise of “stability” and “technocratic efficiency,” but in reality, it protects a class order that rules not by consent but by coercion.

The Collapse of the Bourgeois Constitution

The 1973 Constitution, at its inception, was a bourgeois-democratic compromise — born from the rubble of the 1971 military defeat and dismemberment of the country. For a brief moment, the ruling class was compelled to acknowledge demands for provincial autonomy and parliamentary representation.

But, as Nicos Poulantzas explained, the capitalist state is never a neutral instrument; its legal structures embody class domination.
As Pakistan’s capitalist economy deepened its dependence on imperialist finance capital, the democratic form came increasingly into conflict with capitalist imperatives. Thus, the state swung repeatedly between dictatorship and democracy — between centralized authoritarianism and democratic illusion.

The 26th and 27th amendments are not exceptions but the legal culmination of this process. They have erased the distinction between civil and military spheres and elevated the “permanent state”––the bureaucracy, intelligence network, and military command––to supreme authority.

The Illusion of Reform

To believe that the existing constitutional framework can somehow restore democracy is to misunderstand the class nature of the crisis. As Lenin warned in State and Revolution (1917):

“The bourgeois state cannot be taken over; it must be smashed.”

Reformist circles speak of “constitutional restoration” or “institutional balance,” yet forget that these institutions themselves are expressions of class domination. In Pakistan, the judiciary legitimizes repression, parliament legislates under military supervision, and the media operates under the control of state capitalism. This is not a crisis of individuals or events but of the entire system of rule.

Hence, what is needed is not constitutional restoration but constitutional rupture- a revolutionary transformation that remakes the system from its roots.

The Revolutionary Constituent Assembly: A Historical Necessity

In all revolutionary epochs, Marxists have advanced the demand for a Constituent Assembly as the political expression of popular sovereignty. From the Paris Commune to the Russian Soviets and the anti-colonial movements, this demand has united struggles for democracy with those for social liberation.

For Pakistan today, a revolutionary constituent assembly is not a mere legal or electoral reform .it is a declaration of people’s self-determination. Such an assembly must:

• Be elected through universal adult suffrage, with proportional representation for workers, peasants, students, women, and oppressed nationalities.
• Be fully sovereign and independent of existing civil or military institutions.
• Redefine the social foundations of the state, guaranteeing not only civil liberties but also socio-economic rights — housing, education, healthcare, and dignified employment.
• Make civilian supremacy, federal equality, and institutional transparency core constitutional principles.
• Recognize the right of self-determination for all nations within the federation, including the right to autonomy and secession through referendum.

As Leon Trotsky wrote during the rise of fascism, the demand for a Constituent Assembly serves as a transitional bridge, exposing the limits of bourgeois democracy and mobilizing the masses for revolutionary power. In Pakistan’s current context, it can play precisely this role , a bridge from constitutional decay to revolutionary renewal.

Toward a New Republic: Strategy and Struggle

A revolutionary constituent assembly cannot be decreed from above; it must emerge through mass struggle from below. Workers, peasants, students, women, and oppressed nations must build a united democratic front to confront the Bonapartist state.

This requires:

• Rebuilding independent workers’ and peasants’ organizations, free from mainstream parties and military patronage.
• Reviving the student movement as a center of political education and action.
• Constructing a progressive intellectual front to challenge the ideological hegemony of “national security.”
• Linking democratic struggle with the fight for economic liberation, so that the movement for a new constitution becomes the foundation for a new social order.

As Marx said:

“The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.”

No savior will end Bonapartism; it can only be overthrown by the collective organization of the exploited.

Revolution or Decay

Pakistan’s crisis is not merely constitutional but civilizational. The Bonapartist state has strangled popular sovereignty under a legal veil. Yet within every decay lie the seeds of rebirth.

Today’s revolutionary slogan must be clear and uncompromising:
Down with Bonapartism , Long live the Revolutionary Constituent Assembly!

Only through a popular, bottom-up constitutional process can Pakistan reclaim its democratic and social future — not by returning to the compromise of 1973, but by founding a Second Republic born of struggle, equality, and revolutionary hope.