News
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Upcoming general elections : Minorities urge parties for tickets on independent seats* Ex-MNA says they are trying to sensitise parties, media about minorities’ issues
By Nasir Butt
LAHORE: Non-Muslim candidates will participate in upcoming general elections as independent candidates on general seats if major political parties did not give them tickets.
Talking to Daily Times on Wednesday, the National Lobbying Delegation (NLD) members urged political parties to bring minorities into mainstream politics instead of formulating minorities’ wings in the parties so that minorities could play their role in the country’s prosperity and progress. They also said they were serving the country in other fields such as education, health and army.
To a question, Jai Parkash, an NLD member, said that it was a wrong concept that Muslim voters were not ready to accept minority members as their elected representative, instead it was political parties that gave the impression that minority members could not be candidates of Muslim majority community, he added.
He said their services have been largely recognised in all fields then why not people could benefit from their political acumen. He believed that if people from minority communities would be given a chance to use their abilities for the national service then they would not disappoint the country.
Former MNA George Clement said that they are trying to publicise the objectives of the national lobbying delegation and the aim is to sensitise the mainstream political parties and media organisations regarding crucial issues faced by non-Muslim communities in Pakistan and to get the recommendations included to the manifestoes of political parties for reforming the constitution and the Pakistan Penal Code.
Earlier, the NLD members held a press conference at Lahore Press Club for the electoral rights of the non-Muslims and presented suggestions for improving the participation of religious minorities in the election processes.
“There are 98 National Assembly constituencies where the minority vote banks are large enough to make a significant difference. It is estimated that during 2002 and 2008 elections at least in 107 national assembly constituencies, especially in Punjab, the victory margin was less than the number of non-Muslim voters in that constituencies. On average, out of one thousand registered voters in Pakistan 36 are non-Muslim voters”, said George Clement, former parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs. Jai Parkash, news editor with the daily Ibrat, Hyderabad, quoting from the research study published by the Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan said that there were at least 30 per cent (118 constituencies) of total provincial assembly constituencies in Punjab and at least 25 percent (70 constituencies) of total provincial assembly constituencies in Sindh where the non-Muslim voters if mobilised could play a decisive role in the election results. He said that the average number of minority voters in these constituencies stood at 5,000 approximately.
Naseer Gill, another member of the NLD, urged political parties to set a clear criterion for nomination of candidates on seats reserved for minorities. He said political parties should give up the party list system for nomination of minority candidates. “Parties should avoid issuing tickets to those party members who have not worked in the respective constituency at least for five years,” he said while making suggestions to improve the nomination process.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk