Put election, land reforms back on agenda

Stressing the need for making election less expensive and empowering citizens to contest polls and become members of parliament, Senator Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo on Tuesday said election and land reforms were vital to bring certain structural changes and abolish feudalism from the country and implement fundamental rights in true spirit.
Addressing a press conference on behalf of six progressive political parties, trade unions and women’s groups which earlier in the day submitted two petitions in the Supreme Court of Pakistan regarding election and land reforms, Bizenjo said, “Today no individual from the middle or lower class can contest election in the presence of feudal culture and the six parties had, therefore, submitted two petitions for land and election reforms in the country.”
The six parties that submitted the petitions included Workers Party Pakistan, National Party, Democratic Women’s Association, Pakistan Workers Federation, Pakistan Trade Unions Federation and Pakistan Kissan Committee.
Prominent lawyer Abid Hassan Manto filed the petitions. Bizenjo said the problems faced by the country could not be resolved unless the common man was empowered and enabled to contest election. He said land and election reforms were essential for empowering the middle class and ensuring implementation of fundamental rights.
He said though the constitution did not bar anyone from contesting elections, a person from the middle class or any common man could not contest polls for want of millions of rupees. He said the political freedom and fundamental human rights could not be implemented in their true spirit unless feudalism was abolished and the petitions aimed at attaining those two goals.
He said the success of democracy in India was due to land reforms and many other countries, like Sri Lanka, Iran and Bangladesh, also followed suit and benefited from reforms.
The senator said land reforms which had been announced by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were not radical in nature, but they too were not implemented due to decisions by the Supreme Court and Shariat Appellate bench that said land reforms were un-Islamic.
He said the petitioners asked the Supreme Court to review the decision, as it was outside the mandate of the court and Shariat Appellate bench.
Akhtar Hussain of the Workers Party Pakistan and Osama Saddique, a professor at LUMS, also spoke on the occasion and stressed the need for election and land reforms.