The military dictatorship of General Pervaiz Musharraf has launched a fierce crackdown against its opponents, arresting 20 leaders of political parties belonging to the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, including the general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, Farooq Tariq.

The alliance has called on Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in October 1999, to declare national elections immediately and stand down. It unites the 18 main parties opposing Musharraf, including the former ruling Pakistani Muslim League, the Pakistan People's Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and left-wing forces like the LPP.

The military quickly swooped on the activists who gathered at the Mochi Gate, arresting another 50. Among those arrested and severely beaten were six leaders of the LPP, including the party's Lahore and Punjab secretaries.

The March 21 arrest of its leaders came just two days before a planned (and banned) mass rally in the Punjabi city of Lahore to demand democracy's return. The 20 were arrested at the home of a Muslim League leader as they were putting final plans for the March 23 Pakistan Day rally in place.

The previous night, the military had swooped on the houses of supporters and rounded up more than 2000 activists.

The political parties vowed to go ahead with their March 23 rally, defying both the arrests and the military's seizure and fortification of the Mochi Gate area of the city, where the rally was due to start.

Tariq and other alliance leaders have been charged under a notorious ``anti-state'' activities act. It is now up to the regime to decide whether it will hear a bail application

The arrests of the 20 leaders took place shortly after polls had closed for a second round of local council elections. Political parties were barred from openly participating in the elections and all candidates were forced to run as independents. The Labour Party Pakistan and other oppositionists had performed well in the first round of elections in January, winning a number of seats.

All the political parties participating in the alliance are formally banned and public demonstrations have been illegal for more than a year.

When he seized power on October 12, 1999, Musharraf claimed that he would save Pakistan from the endemic corruption and poverty that had beset the country during the reign of the Muslim League's then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He promised that he would end the domination of politics by corrupt landlords and industrialists, limit the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists and restore democracy step-by-step by October 2002.

His actions put the lie to his words, however, as he cracked down on oppositionists and unionists and delayed on steps to bring back democracy. In November, for example, he ordered military discipline to be enforced in the country's strongly unionised railway workshops and yards, sent police in to beat up protesting railway workers and detained four union leaders.

The regime's economic policy has also provoked mass anger, after signing agreements with the International Monetary Fund, the most recent in December, which specify the large-scale retrenchment of public sector workers and an unprecedented price hike.

And the dictator's one great claim to any degree of popular backing, his promise to come down hard on corruption, was dealt an irreparable blow by his December 10 decision to release Nawaz Sharif and allow him and his family to go into exile in Saudi Arabia. The regime had previously built up a strong case against Sharif and was using the case as proof of its anti-corruption credentials.

The formation in October of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy was a clear and present danger for Musharraf, and repressing it has been his chief concern since then. But his March 21 crackdown seems to have only increased the alliance's standing among the Pakistani people and made Musharraf's eventual downfall all the more certain.

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