25 July 2018

As Pakistan goes to the polls, Christians ask 'Does anybody care for us?'

This week, Pakistan goes to the polls. Thousands of candidates will contest hundreds of provincial and national constituencies across the country. And barely a handful of these thousands of candidates will be a Christian. Minorities account for about 5 per cent of Pakistan’s 210-million-strong population, but they remain almost completely absent from mainstream politics.

John

John
Open Doors Team

This week, Pakistan goes to the polls. Thousands of candidates will contest hundreds of provincial and national constituencies across the country.

And barely a handful of these thousands of candidates will be a Christian.

Minorities account for about 5 per cent of Pakistan’s 210-million-strong population, but they remain almost completely absent from mainstream politics.

Under Pakistan’s political system there are two types of seats in the various assemblies: general seats, which are directly elected and which anyone can contest (but which in reality usually only Muslims win) and reserved seats for women and minorities. Reserved seats are filled from a list of names nominated by the main political parties, and allocated on a proportional representation basis, depending on how many of the general seats each party won. There are 70 reserved seats: 60 for women and 10 for ethnic minority candidates.

This should make sure that women and minorities such as Hindus and Christians have proper representation in parliament. But in practice the system has proved much more beneficial to the Hindu minority than to Christians. The wealth of the Hindu minority means that they have better political connections, so they get to the top of the lists for the reserved seats.

William Barkat, a Christian who was a member of the Balochistan Assembly, one of the four provincial assemblies of Pakistan, in the last government, said that many rich Hindu businessmen in Sindh were able to give a huge amount of money to their party to get onto a reserved seat.

“Christians are mostly very poor and cannot pay to get on priority lists,” he said. “So they have to serve decades as party workers to earn the pleasure of their party leadership, before they can make into the assemblies.”

It is likely that Hindus will have six or seven seats out of the ten reserved seats for minorities, and Christians will have two, while one will go to the Zoroastrian community.

’Nobody cares about us anyway’

All of which leaves Christians feeling ever more powerless and precarious.

A young Christian woman asked Open Doors supporters to pray for poor Christians like the brick kiln workers and farmers, who in the newspaper said that they are not interested in the outcome of the elections, since ‘nobody cares about us anyway’.

Pastor Sharoz* summed up the fears of many Christians: “I sense that a difficult season is ahead of us. Please pray that we will stand up against and not flee from darkness."

Another Pakistani Christian shared her prayer with us, a prayer which reads like a poem:

Lord, have mercy.
Father as you hear our prayers,
Lighten our darkness,
Lord, we pray, and in your great mercy
Defend us from all perils and dangers of this night,
For the love of your only Son,
Our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Defend us, deliver us, and in thy compassion protect us,
O Lord, by your grace, have mercy.
Let us commend ourselves, and one another,
And all our life, to Christ our God.

The main political parties

Pakistan’s People Party (PPP). The party of the assassinated former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. It led the outgoing goverment coalition. Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari is the current president. Their son, Bilawal, will succeed him as party leader.
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Led by Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister ousted in 1999 by Musharraf.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). An emerging party led by former cricket player, Imran Khan. Centrist party which – according to the party – aims to create a welfare state, where the state is responsible for education, health and employability of citizens.
The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). A leading religious party with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its leader is Siraj ul Haq. It is a socially conservative and Islamist political party.

Who shall we vote for?

Given this background, it is no surprise that Christians find it hard to know who to vote for. There is no party that really stands in the gap for non-Muslims. “Who will build legislature to protect us against discrimination and Islamic extremism? Who will build more schools?” a local Christian asked. “We really need God’s wisdom to determine who to vote for.”

A Pakistani Christian leader told Open Doors, “Many Christians fear Imran Khan as the country’s leader as he has said he wants to return to jirga, a traditional assembly of leaders that make decisions by consensus and according to the teachings of Pashtunwali – a series of non-written ethical codes which predate modern laws and which prove a dangerous mix in combination with Sharia, the strict Islamic law."

But can Christians really trust Khan’s opponents? Will they improve the situation?

For too many of Pakistan’s beleaguered Christians, these are literally questions of life and death.

Please pray

That the elected government would seek justice and would stand up for the rights of minorities
That individual politicians would speak up for human rights and for the freedom of belief
That the Christians in Pakistan would feel encouraged and supported, and know that they are not alone.

Persecution in Pakistan

Pakistan is number five on the 2018 World Watch List, Open Doors’ ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. In many ways, Pakistan can seem like a land of great darkness. Christians are a tiny minority: the official figure is just 3.9 million in a country of 197 million, and they face daily discrimination and frequent violent attacks. The nation’s infamous blasphemy laws are abused to target Christians, with accusations leading to Christians being imprisoned or killed. An estimated 700 Christian women and girls are abducted and forced to marry every year.

And yet, the light of the gospel continues to shine through the faith and courage of our Pakistani brothers and sisters, and your prayers and support are helping to keep that light shining.

Read more about our church family in Pakistan:

*Name changed for security reasons