CANDIDATE PROFILE
Multan: Nosheen Afshan is the only candidate of the Awami National Party (ANP) among more than 44 women candidates contesting in the upcoming general elections on the 141 general seats in the Punjab.
A Jatoi Baloch by tribe and a lawyer by profession, Afshan is contesting from NA-155 seat in Multan. She has been an active member of the party for several years. For the upcoming election, she has attracted media attention by driving around in the constituency on a motorbike to canvass for votes. She has been on the ground ever since her campaign started, visiting from door to door with her campaign team.
Afshan is currently enrolled in the masters of English Literature programme at the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU). In the past, she has remained affiliated with the development sector and has worked on various projects for promotion of human rights and women empowerment.
Talking to Daily Times, she expressed her hope that her past experience in the development sector would prove helpful in securing the support of women voters in the area. Regarding her political programme, she said her main objective in politics was to raise support for ending gender-based violence as well as to pave the way for a level-playing field for women, particularly in the economy where women were often discriminated against and men given preference for jobs in certain sectors. “Women should be able to earn a respectable livelihood for themselves,” she says, adding that corruption was the root cause of all evils in the society, whether it was the violation of human rights or terrorist attacks.
“I strongly condemn the attack on our leader Haroon Balour. He was martyred in a terrorist attack. He would be remembered as a champion of human rights, and all of us should follow in his footsteps,” she says, adding that members and workers of the ANP could not be threatened by such cowardly attacks.
Afshan is the only woman candidate in NA-155. She will contest against 15 male candidates in the constituency where Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s Malik Amir Dogar, a former MNA and district nazim, is considered to be a favourite.
In a by-election held in the constituency in 2014, Dogar defeated veteran politician Javed Hashmi. Besides PTI, PML-N, Sunni Tehreek, Tehreek-e-labaik and Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek candidates are also in the contest in the constituency. There is no candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party here.
Published in Daily Times, July 12th 2018.