Dear Editor
I am from Thar area of Sindh but I have been living in Ottawa, Canada for the last four decades. Being a Pakistani living abroad, I started a respectable business in Canada in which I earned a name as well as wealth.
Now for the last three years, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in Pakistan has taken an initiative that has made Pakistanis living abroad very happy. It is to allow them to exercise their right to vote, but unfortunately all Pakistani political parties except PTI are refusing to give the right to vote to those of us who live abroad. Political parties can give an answer as to why they are doing this, but I think, political parties other than PTI want to deprive us of the right to vote because they are afraid that PTI Let them not get those nine million votes.
I want to make it clear that all the overseas Pakistanis are not with PTI but they are also politically affiliated with Pakistan People’s Party, PML-N, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and other political parties. In my opinion, there are many Pakistanis who love Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Mian Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazlur Rehman and other political leaders. But when any politician or important person from Pakistan visits Canada, the Pakistanis living here give them an unprecedented welcome and participate in these programs keeping their political point of view away, which proves that they love Pakistan and their hearts beat with Pakistan.
Just two years ago, on the invitation of our welfare organization IM Pakistan World Wide Movement, former Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar came here for the dam fund awareness campaign. Every Pakistani attended his programmes and proved that they wanted to build dams in Pakistan and our organization held events in all major cities in Canada.
Pakistanis living abroad are also Pakistanis. They should also have the right to use their vote. Therefore, the political parties in Pakistan should allow us to exercise our right to vote and work hard politically to get votes, but should not oppose. Let us also say that we Pakistanis living abroad are very serious about Pakistan
Let there be a system that is equal for all, there should be no difference between rich and poor. If we cannot end inflation at least there should be reduction in it. The prices of flour, onions, potatoes, pulses and other necessities will be the same as they were twenty years ago. And it is possible.
Anyway, my topic today is right of vote for overseas Pakistanis and I will limit myself to that. The government of Pakistan has announced to complete the relevant legislation for holding general elections through electronic voting machine and has issued two separate ordinances for overseas Pakistanis to vote through internet voting and has also passed an ordinance in Parliament to legislate on them. The Senate Chairman formed the committee and added a government member to it. The committee has seven government members and seven opposition members, indicating that the government wants to get the bill passed by majority vote in the Senate committee.
How the government and the opposition legislate that is their matter, we demand that Pakistanis living overseas should be given the right to vote so that they can play their part and use their experience to get Pakistan out of trouble.
If we are given the right to vote, we can use our experience to bring about changes in Pakistan that could put Pakistan on the list of developing countries, eliminate our debts, and create jobs for Pakistanis. We can create a system that will enable every Pakistani to reap the benefits of using money and influence without any interference.
Syed Ahmad Ali
Chairman IM Pakistan World Wide Movement
Ottawa, Canada