People with disabilities might not be very hopeful of their chances of getting to vote or contest in elections
LAHORE: With elections coming up, a size-able segment of the population might not be very hopeful of their chances of getting to vote. A case in point: people with disabilities. Much like the case of female voters and female candidates contesting elections, differently-abled individuals too are not made to feel quite welcome in political parties. Moreover, no disabled candidates have been awarded tickets by any party to contest the elections.
Token measures taken by the Election Commission of Pakistan would do less than little to bring such individuals to the polling booths, as according to few reports pavements have been made outside the stations to facilitate disabled people, however, that might be a case at few stations only, and that too is those located in posh localities.
Like the transgender community, differently-abled people too should be given special arrangements for polling exercise to ensure registered voters are actually able to cast their votes.
Shahmeer Hamid
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2018.
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