* Minority community’s boycott due to separate electoral lists
By Kashif Hussain
LAHORE: The upcoming elections are not the first that have been boycotted by the Ahmedis rather these are the eighth consecutive polls being boycotted by the minority community.
Historically, the Ahmedis have not taken part in any election at any level after they were declared non-Muslims in the constitution in 1974. They boycotted the general elections for the first time in 1977. In the later years, they also did not go to the elections when military dictator General Ziaul Haq introduced separate electoral system in the country in 1985.
Prior to this year (1985) all national elections were conducted on the basis of the joint electorate system, but Zia announced allocation of separate seats for non-Muslim Pakistani citizens in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies. Separate electoral lists on a different coloured paper were published for the purpose. The Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Parsi and Ahmedi voters were listed separately.
One seat in each in national and four provincial assemblies was allocated for the Ahmedi community. One proclaimed Ahmedi family contested the elections on every seat and Bashiruddin Khalid became a National Assembly member while his other family members became provincial assemblies’ members. It is pertinent to mention here that the Ahmedis did not accept these men as their representatives, as according to them they had never nominated anyone to represent them in parliament.
The interesting fact is that Ahmedis do not get their names registered in the voters list of the Election Commission of Pakistan and the only names included in the separate list of Ahmadi voters have been collected from NADRA record. According to the available data, there are about 200,000 registered voters of Ahmedi community in the electoral lists throughout the country and out of this number 115,966 registered Ahmadi voters reside in Lahore and Chiniot (Rabwah – headquarters of the community) districts of Punjab. Overall, in Chiniot and Lahore districts, there are 35,335 and 247,827 non-Muslim voters, respectively, constituting 6 percent of the total registered voters here.
Categories: Ahmadis And Pakistan, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Anti Islam act by Muslims, Asia