Forum Pakistan

Awami National Party
(ANP) Founded in 1986 by several groups of the National Democratic Party, the Pakistan National Party, Awami Tehrik, the Workers and Peasants Party, and some other smaller groups.

The party's leadership was in favour of adopting a new constitution. The election programme of 1988 envisaged the building in Pakistan of a society of 'economic and social democracy' in which all citizens would be guaranteed food, housing, clothes, education, health services and employment. The election manifesto bore the imprint of the party founders' left-of-centre positions and dealt mainly with the problems of the NWFP. The authors of the programme promised to be guided by a new economic concept according to which industries using local resources would be given priority. They also promised to eradicate smuggling. Other measures proclaimed were the freeing of the country from foreign influence, achievement of self-sufficiency, mobilization of inner resources for development and reduction of unproductive expenditure.