ISLAMABAD: Aslam Khan Khattak passed his first — and perhaps most curious — test this week in his quest to become a member of Pakistan’s parliament: He correctly named the first person to walk on the moon.
The question was posed to Khattak by Pakistani judges, who have provoked both laughter and criticism in recent days in their vetting of potential candidates in the country’s upcoming national elections with queries that have veered between the controversial and the bizarre.
One candidate was prodded to spell the word graduation. Another was quizzed on the lyrics of the national anthem. A third was asked how she would manage to serve as a lawmaker with two young children at home.
Many candidates were forced to recite Islamic prayers to prove they were devout Muslims, and one — a prominent journalist — was disqualified because one of his newspaper columns was deemed to have ridiculed Pakistan’s ideology.
“The manner in which the exercise of screening election candidates is being conducted cannot even be termed as childis,” Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said in an editorial. “It is far worse.”
The source of the problem, according to critics, is a pair of articles in Pakistan’s constitution — 62 and 63 — introduced in the 1980s by former military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq that govern who is eligible to serve in parliament.
Although the articles have been in the constitution for years, they haven’t played a significant role in past elections. But the Supreme Court has pressed judges vetting thousands of candidates to enforce the law more strictly in the run-up to the May 11 parliamentary election in an attempt to weed out corrupt politicians and those who may have broken basic laws, such as not paying their taxes, a common abuse in Pakistan.
AP
