Transgender people want inclusion in electoral process

Petition filed in PHC which calls for right of priority voting

PESHAWAR: Fearing that they will be stripped of their right to franchise, the embattled transgender community in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday urged a superior court to direct the government to formulate a viable strategy to facilitate them in the electoral process apart from granting them the ‘right of priority voting’ at polling stations.

A petition was filed in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) by transgender activists Farzana Riaz and Arzu Khan, who run an organisation called ‘Transaction’, an alliance of the transgender and intersex community.

Filed through Advocate Gul Rahman Mohmand, they demanded that a specific column for the transgender and intersex community in the electoral nomination form to make transgender able to not only poll their votes but also contest elections.



Through the petition, people who are transgender also urged the court to direct the ECP to engage with the transgender community and with their organisations to devise a proper strategy in this regard.

They listed the Chief Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the provincial election commissioner as respondents.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2018.