Pakistan is set to elect 1st woman parliamentary speaker

of the February 18 elections have said.

Fahmida Mirza has been nominated for the office of the speaker of the National Assembly by the Pakistan slain leader Benazir Bhutto and PML-N Party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and their allies.

Fahmida comes from a political family of southern Sindh, the stronghold of Peoples party.

The 51-year-old Mirza, who elected as Member National assembly on February 18 for the third consecutive term from Badin district, will be the first woman speaker of the National Assembly.

She is wife of Zulfiqar Mirza, who is a close aide of PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and was also elected member of provincial assembly in Sindh.

She is an agriculturist and businesswoman by profession, although she is a medical graduate.

Fahmida Mirza has been winning her parliamentary seat continuously since 1997.

"I will remain non-partisan and will provide a level playing field to the treasury and opposition members," Fahmida Mirza told reporters after filing nomination papers with the Secretary of the National Assembly.

"A woman could be a best speaker of the National Assembly as this slot demands tolerance," she added.

The opposition PML-Q party and allied parties have fielded Israr Tareen, a lawmaker from southwestern Balochistan province, as candidate to challenge Fahmida Mirza.

Earlier, Begum Ashraf Abbasi was the only woman who had held the office of deputy speaker twice - once in second tenure of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto during 1977 and second time in the first government of late Benazir Bhutto from 1988-90.

The opposition fielded Faisal Karim Kundi, for the office of deputy speaker.

Kundi, belongs to Dera Ismail Khan in North West frontier province, who had defeated religious leader Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, the chief of Jamiat ulema-e-Islam (F).

(http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-239/0803195934084943.htm)

The man who trounced Fazl weeps on backbenches

ISLAMABAD: A young PPP MNA, who thrashed JUI veteran Maulana Fazlur Rehman by about 40,000 votes, will now sit on the backbenches while the defeated Maulana will again be a minister in the PPP-led coalition cabinet.

Faisal Kundi, who was educated in London and was specially groomed by Benazir to beat Maulana Fazlur Rehman, appears to be the first casualty of the Zardari-Fazl romance, thanks to the ironies of coalition politics.

Last year, Benazir Bhutto had particularly sent this young graduate from London with the mission to defeat the MMA leader and this young man fulfilled her wish, though after her death.

Now with the changing situation, Kundi is facing taunts from his voters as he had assured them he would politically eliminate the chief supporter of Taliban.

Despite suffering a massive defeat at the hands of this young man, Fazlur Rehman is now having the last laugh as he successfully got a promise from Zardari to get his party in the future cabinet in the name of "reconciliation".

Faisal, who was expecting a ministerial job at Islamabad as a reward after defeating the JUI leader, is now puzzled as he would be sitting on the backbenches like an ordinary MNA. Kundi is practically hiding from his voters in Islamabad, as he keeps on receiving phone calls from his constituency.

Maulana Fazl, trying to pressurise Benazir Bhutto to withdraw him from Dera Ismail Khan, in return offered Benazir Bhutto to withdraw the MMA candidate from Larkana. Benazir Bhutto, at one stage, had seriously started considering withdrawing Kundi in her bid to ensure her return to parliament. But, when Kundi argued that he was in a position to win the seat quite comfortably, Benazir also agreed so that she could tell the Western countries that her party had defeated the chief supporter of Taliban.

Secondly, she wanted to eliminate Fazl’s chances of manipulation to become the prime minister with the help of the establishment.

The Maulana, who knew that he would not win against the popular Kundi, also tried his connections with Asif Zardari to get Faisal out of the way. But once again, Kundi presented his case before Zardari and succeeded in staying in the race.

Faisal used to tell his party leaders that he would defeat the mighty Maulana with a margin of 35,000 votes. Many used to laugh over his claim but when the results came, everybody was shocked to see how a young London graduate had trounced the MMA leader.

The young man now is being sacrificed at the altar of reconciliation and pragmatic coalition politics of national consensus.

Talking to The News, Faisal confirmed that he was facing taunts and sarcastic comments from his voters who had voted for him in the name of change in the area.

He sounded very disappointed over the developments taking place as he did not know whether he would be given any position in the cabinet to fulfill the promises he had made with his voters to defeat the MMA leader.

(http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=101103)