On the Campaign Trail: Lower middle-class woman in the fray

Among candidates backed by powerful political parties, influential landlords, a woman belonging to the lower middle-class, has jumped into the fray of electoral politics, vying for a provincial assembly seat from this backward city of Sindh province.

Huma Naz Sheikh, a young woman in her late 20s, is running for the Sindh Provincial Assembly seat number 1 from Sukkur as an independent candidate.

"Without money and backing of any political party I managed to get elected as councillor in the local body elections," Sheikh told Gulf News as she ate her lunch comprising boiled rice and lentils at a roadside shop during a brief break in her door-to-door campaigning.

"Now I am trying to climb the next stair", she said.

Sheikh is the product of the new local government system introduced by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to introduce democracy at what he calls at the grassroots level. She could be one of the new faces, which the government desperately wants to see in the parliament if she manages to beat the heavy odds pitted against her.

Sheikh faces candidates, including those belonging to the powerful Pakistan People's Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. "I have none of the facilities which my rivals have," she said. "When I ran for the local body elections I even did not appoint election agents, but I won," she said.

And this time again Sheikh does not plan to appoint agents during the vote-counting, nor does she have any political workers to go out for her campaigning. Only Sheikh's family members – six sisters, her father, nieces and nephews – are helping her in the elections campaign. They are her only political workers.

"People say election is an expensive game. I do not think so. We only need handbills and some banners. We have hoisted all the banners ourselves and distributing the handbills in the door-to-door campaign.

"Other political parties have dozens of political workers doing that task. The candidates pay for the transport, food and drinks of their supporters in most cases increasing the cost of the campaign."

Sheikh said that when people spend money in elections, they want to get it back with profit once they are elected to power. "All people, even journalists listen to the rich politicians and landlords. But I am trying to approach the common people. When I knock at their doors, the men and women listen to me."

In Pakistan, few people from the middle-class or lower middle class background are elected to the parliament. Landlords, powerful tribal chiefs, clerics and rich businessmen and industrialists dominate the parliament.

"These politicians have failed even to provide a glass of clean water to the people of Larkana," reads the handbill being distributed by Sheikh. I don't want to make any tall promises of converting Sukkur into Paris. I just want to serve the city," the handbill says.

While Sheikh stands little chance of beating the powerful political parties, people say that she is making waves and has touched the right chord in peoples' heart. Many Pakistanis are angry and frustrated with the mainstream political parties because of their involvement in massive corruption, misuse of power and misrule.