Despite of returning to democracy, it seems there are certain legacies created by President Pervez Musharaf, when he was a General, which are, detrimental to the fundamental rights of the peoples of Pakistan.
It has been brought to the knowledge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, that the conditions of contestants in elections being graduates, has deprived 97 % population of the country from contesting elections.
As revealed by the Pakistan’s Attorney General, Malik Mohammed Qayyum to the Supreme Court of Pakistan that depriving most of the people in Pakistan i.e nearly 97 % of the population of Pakistan, is contrary to fundamental rights guaranteed in various articles of the Constitution of the Pakistan. This condition deprives a vast majority from contesting elections.Only 1.4 per cent of the countries 160 million people and less than 4 % of the 68.1 million of the total registered voters are graduates. The above statement was made by him in the course of the hearing of a petition challenging the University degree condition.
President Pervez Musharaf, before the 2002 election, had imposed the condition allowing only graduate to contest elections for the Senate, National Assembly and Provincial Assembly.
The new law created by Pervez Musharaf was also implemented in the 2008 general elections. However, several politicians who had been parliamentarians and cabinet members in the past challenged the condition, on the ground that it was not the right time to impose such a condition when the literary rate in the country was low.
According to the Attorney-General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said that only 3 % of the registered voters were eligible to take part in the election to Parliament and the Provincial Assembly.
Let us hope that the restrictive provision impinging on the fundemantal rights of the people of Pakistan, will get struck down and they enjoy their fundemental right of contesting the general election in a free and fair manner.