KARACHI, Aug 24: Almost all the mainstream political parties, except the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, have reportedly grappled with an acute problem of finding suitable candidates for the reserved women’s seats.

The obstacle propped up due to the graduation condition for eligibility of a candidate to contest the October elections in the country. With approaching of the last date, which stands extended from Saturday to Monday, leaders of the mainstream political parties have been in a fix as in their workers’ lists there are very few women activists who could meet the requirement of eligibility.

Therefore, in most of the cases, either they have to rely on the new entrants or selection made from their qualified family women, as a result by 6pm on Saturday over 109 women candidates had submitted their nominations with the provincial election commissioner.

In all the mass political organizations, particularly PPP and PML, most of the women activists were even not matriculate what to talk of having graduates. However, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Jamaat-i-Islami were the only parties which could not face any difficulty on this account. Their worry was whom to select as in their ranks women from lower to upper middle classes were almost in equal numbers who had regularly been participating in party programmes, continuing round-the-year.

In the cases of PPP and PML, despite their being organizations of the masses relatively, their party culture, which did not reflect homogeneous organization except a few, has so far failed to bring forward middle class women on the party front. According to insiders, instead of fielding new-comers, the leadership has decided to bring close relatives of the party leaders into the forefront.

Although the situation in some of the newly formed political parties is quite opposite to the above tow organizations, but they have yet to prove their political strength and as such they did not face any similar problem.

According to the electoral reforms announced by the present government, out of the 75 seats of National Assembly from Sindh, 61 are general while 14 are reserved for women. Likewise, in Sindh Assembly, out of the 168 total seats, 130 are general, 29 reserved for women and nine for minorities.

Each mainstream political party is supposed to furnish a list of at least 17 per cent of the total candidates they intend to field in the October 10 elections on the presumption that the candidates nominated for contesting polls would get elected.

In the constitutional reforms promulgated through the Legal Framework Order 2002, “Members to the seats reserved for women which are allocated to the province under clause (1A) shall be elected in accordance with law through proportional representation system of political parties lists of candidates on the basis of total number of general seats secured by each political party in the National Assembly. The same procedure would be applicable for election of women on the reserved seats of the provincial assemblies.

However, a political party securing less than five per cent of the total number of seats in the assembly shall not be entitled to any seat reserved for women.

In the reforms, a new clause, which could prove a redeeming feature for the runner-up candidates of the reserved seats, entitles the next candidate to fill the seat fallen vacant owing to death, disqualification or resignation of the incumbent member.

According to the LFO-2002, “When a seat reserved for women or non-Muslims in the National Assembly or a provincial assembly falls vacant, it shall be filled by the next person in order of precedence from the party list of the candidates submitted to the Election Commission for the last general election by the political party whose member has vacated the seat.