ICC Note:
Christians in Pakistan held a demonstration in front of the Lahore Press Club yesterday and demanded greater representation in the country’s politics. They say, the system by which religious minorities, including Christians, are brought into the government actually denies Christians any political influence. According to the current system, a small number of seats in the government are reserved for religious minorities. Instead of the religious minority communities voting representatives into these seats, these seats are filled by selection by the ruling political party. This creates a problem because often the representative filling a minority seat is more allied with the political party that selected him instead of the minority community he is supposed to represent. Will these protests lead to political change for Christians in Pakistan?
12/01/2017 Pakistan (Pakistan Today) – Pakistan Christian Movement on Thursday held a demonstration in front of Lahore Press Club to protest the non-representation [selection system] of minority communities in the current electoral system of Pakistan.
Addressing the protesters, the chairman of Pakistan Christian Movement, Riaz Anjum, lamented that the current system has stripped the Christians along with other minorities of their free will due to which they have become dependent on the major political parties for representation [in parliament and provincial assemblies]. The reserved seats have done injustice to the Christian community of the country and to Constitution as well, he added.
The protesters demanded the right to elect the individuals on reserved seats as against to the selection of the said candidates; an increase in the number of reserved seats along with delimitation of new constituencies for the seats so that their representative could contest elections from these constituencies.
The participants also called for an end to the selection system and demanded the right for electing their members through votes.
They further said that there was no increase in the number of seats since 1981 despite the fact there was an [overall] increase in the number of seats in parliament during the reign of retired general Pervez Musharraf, in 2002.
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