Badam Zari (right) talks with journalists about her decision to contest election from Federally Administered Tribal Areas, in Bajauar near the Afghan border, yesterday.
KHAR/TIMERGARA: Two women, one from Pakistan’s northwestern Bajaur tribal agency and the other from Lower Dir district, made history yesterday when they became the first tribal women to file nomination papers to contest parliamentary elections.
Election Commission officials said 40-year-old Badam Zari, wife of Sultan Khan, filed papers for NA-44, Bajaur, yesterday. Bajaur has two seats of the Lower House of parliament.
Asad Sarwar, returning officer in Bajaur, confirmed the filing of nomination papers by Badam Zari for NA-44.
Zari said she would contest election to work for the tribal women’s welfare.
“I want to work for the betterment of women in the tribal area, especially Bajaur Agency, which has suffered immensely in the tribal system,” she said.
She said no lawmaker from the tribal area had raised issues of women of the area in the National Assembly.
She said she was not scared of anything or anyone and was determined to contest election because this was her constitutional and religious right. She said she would launch her campaign soon.
The other woman candidate Nusrat Begum of Lower Dir, filed her papers for NA-34 constituency as an independent candidate.
Begum, wife of Karim Khan, is the first woman in Lower Dir to pick up courage and decide to contest election.
Begum, who was the district vice-president of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, said she would contest election as an independent candidate because her party had allotted ticket to another candidate.
“All the people who won from the constituency in the past did nothing for people’s betterment,” she said, adding that if elected she would work to provide basic amenities to people, especially women, children and minorities.
Political observers and analysts termed submission of nomination papers by both women a major development.
They said now no one could stop women from taking part in election and exercising their right to vote.
Internews
