Two groups representing Christians have called on members of the community to wear a black armband while voting on Saturday as a protest against not having the right to directly vote for Christian representatives.
Under the present system, political parties get to nominate representatives for reserved seats for minorities based on their proportional strength in parliament. Before this system was introduced via the Legal Framework Order in 2002, minorities could elect their own candidates directly through separate voter lists.
Representatives of the Human Liberation Commission Pakistan and Masiha Millat Party said that they had asked Christians to vote, as it was their democratic duty, but at the same time to wear black armbands in order to protest their inability to directly elect Christian representatives.
The National Assembly has 10 reserved seats for minorities: four for Christians, four for Hindus, one for Ahmadis, and one for Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and other non-Muslims.
HLCP chairman Aslam Parvez Sahotra said that under the present system, party leaders could choose who they wished to put in reserved seats, regardless of their status within the community.
“This minority representative has no incentive to hear the views of the community, as it was not through their votes that he reached parliament,” he said.
He said that the HLCP had filed a petition before the Lahore High Court challenging Article 51 (2)(a)(e) of the Constitution. Sahotra’s counsel Naseeb Anjum said that Article 51 (2)(a)(e) violated Article 25, which promised equal rights for all regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity.
He said that under the present system, the non-Muslim candidates didn’t represent the communities, but the party. “They are puppets who work for the party’s interest,” he said.
“As we can’t vote for our own representatives, nobody is accountable to us,” said MMP General Secretary Munir Shahid. He said that they had chosen the symbolic protest for election day to get the maximum publicity among minority members. The MMP was also organising sit-ins at Muridke, Gujranwala, Narang Mandi and Kamoke on election day, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2013.