Minority leaders demand shot at general seats
The representatives are hoping to make a more democratic system whereby community members are able to vote for their representatives in parliament.
In a press conference on Monday, former MNA George Claimant asked political parties to abolish ‘minority wings’ and instead give non-Muslims more representation by giving them party tickets to contest for general seats. “The parties should include a reform package in their manifestos and end discriminatory laws,” Claimant said. He added that Pakistani minorities must have the right to elect a person to safeguard their rights and represent them on national forums.
Highlighting flaws in the existing system, he said there was presently not a single minority representative from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the National Assembly.
He also said that many people had been nominated to parliament through favouritism, while minority communities have been ignored. “In order to protect our rights, the government needs to change current laws,” Claimant added.
Head of the Christian Study Centre, Romana Bashi, also spoke at the news briefing and said that women from minority groups were sidelined in both national and provincial assemblies.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2012.
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It is correct that some individuals are picked up to represent Religious Minorities in the National and the Provincial Assemblies in Pakistan on the principle of the Proportional Representation. It is also true that they can contest elections for any Assembly in their individual capacity. It is also true that one or two individuals made their way into the Sindh Assembly on the Ticket of the PPP. However, the countrywide survey conducted by the Church World Service among all the Minorities living in Pakistan, demonstrated that elections of 2002 and 2008 have generated an overall dissatisfaction and malaise among the Minorities on the following counts:
These reflected the lack of seriousness of the two mainstream parties in particular, the PPP and the PML (N). These were not diligent enough and did not follow any standards to evaluate the suitability of the candidates. The result being that the candidates of PML(N) got prioritized and picked up from an area of 200 meters radius fron one and the same Mohallah.Another lady candidate was inducted into the Punjab Assembly .
Dear Reader,
I'm sharing the charter of demand of this national lobbying delegation for the better standing of the press confrence; Charter of Demands: 1. Political parties should give up the party list system for nomination of the Non-Muslim candidates.
Parties should avoid issuing tickets to those party members who have not worked in the respective constituency at least for five years.
There should be a clearly laid out criterion to ensure transparent nomination of candidates on seats reserved for Non-Muslims.
Affiliation with the political party should be a requirement for those applying for the party ticket on reserved seats.
Steps should be taken to end the culture of segregation.
Amendments are needed in the Political Parties Act 2002.
The members of various Non-Muslim communities are facing problems in getting the national identity cards issued from the respective authorities. The process of certification should be made easy.
There should be a proper system both for birth and marriage registration of the Non-Muslim communities.
The attestation requirements are so complicated that make it almost impossible for most of the members from minority communities to get their documents attested. The process of attestation of documents should be made easy.
There should be Mobile Registration Vans for an exact head count of the Non-Muslim communities and decisions about their representational issues should be made in light of the fresh statistics.
The polling staff should be trained to be unbiased. There should be a mechanism to address the issues faced by the Non-Muslim communities during the elections.
This person is wrong on two counts:-
Pakistan has a joint electorate and a non-Muslim may stand for election from any seat he wishes. On top of which there are no less than 37 seats reserved for minorties in the federal and provincial assemblies.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkwa provincial assembly has 3 minority (non-Muslim) members.
http://www.pakp.gov.pk/html/1193296535_e.shtml
Didn't they had problem with seperate electorate and bashed Musharraf for that? Now they want to go back to old system?
What is this guy talking about? Pakistan has a joint electorate and a non-Muslim may stand for election from any seat he wishes. The nominated seats are in addition to that.
The PPP candidate for NA 229 is almost always a Hindu community and more non-Muslims would be able to contest elections once people get over their zaat-biradari tendencies through a continuous electoral process.
Yes! Everyone is equal in the eyes of ALLAH! therefore laws should be same for everyone.