By Aamir Latif
ISLAMABAD
A female Pakistani lawmaker has claimed her husband forced her to resign her seat so he could replace her in the Sindh state assembly.
Parveen Junejo, who was elected as a Pakistan People’s Party member for the south-eastern Dadu district in 2013, told reporters on Tuesday that she was still a member of the assembly as she had not resigned willingly.
Junejo said she was forced to sign a blank piece of paper by her husband Abdul Aziz in front of other party politicians.
She said: “I was called by my husband and other parliamentarians from Pakistan People’s Party to Zardari House [the party headquarters] last week, where he forced me to sign a blank paper.
“This all happened in the presence of the senior party leadership but they did not intervene.”
Junejo said she was estranged from her husband, a former irrigation engineer, and claimed he had threatened to kill her if she did not sign.
The tearful Junejoo added: “He threatened that he would kill me and snatch my children from me if I did not sign the blank paper. I had no choice but to sign the paper.”
Her ‘resignation’ was accepted by Agha Siraj Durrani, the assembly speaker for Sindh, one of Pakistan’s four provinces.
Junejo claimed this acceptance contravened the constitution as a lawmaker’s resignation letter must be hand-written and the speaker must confirm the resignation with the lawmaker.
“The speaker should have called me before accepting my resignation,” Junejo, who is one of the few women parliamentarians elected in direct elections, said. Pakistan’s constitution specifies that a third of legislature seats in national and provincial assemblies are reserved for women, who are either nominated according to their party’s position or elected directly.
Durrani and Junejo’s husband did not answer The Anadolu Agency’s repeated attempts to contact them by telephone.
However. a senior party leader, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that Abdul Aziz Junejo wanted to replace his wife in the assembly.
“Aziz Junejo could not contest the 2013 general elections because, as an ex-government official, he had to complete a two-year term before entering the politics,” the party chief said. “That’s why he fielded his wife to contest the elections. Now, that term is over and he wanted to replace her.
“This is a family issue. The wife is not ready to resign as her husband has got a second wife in the meantime.”
The party source admitted the assembly speaker had not followed the correct procedure while Junejo confirmed that her husband had married a second wife.
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