'Women candidates manhandled by opponents'

Women candidates contesting the forthcoming local bodies elections are facing difficulties as they were manhandled in different districts and threatened of dire consequences by the opponents, said Sarwar Bari, co-ordinator Patan while addressing a press conference here on Friday.
"We have observers in 63 districts of all the provinces whose reports indicate that women were being forced, beaten and intimidated to withdraw from the election besides the massive use of public resources by the government functionaries in support of ruling party's candidates," he added.
Sarwar Bari said a women candidate was beaten by her opponents in Muzaffargarh while notables of Charsadda and Mardan have signed agreements to bar women from taking part in the election.
"A large number of women wanted to contest the forthcoming local bodies elections on the seats other than ones reserved for them but they were discouraged by the attitude of their male opponents, political parties and failure of election commission to protect them from male chauvinism," he said.
He regretted that the election commission has not taken action against any candidate for violations of the code of conduct or against government functionaries who were using public resources on the campaign of their favourite candidates.
Bari said that the election commission failed to get implemented its own code of conduct, which he alleged was completely disregarded by the candidates as well as government functionaries.
He was of the view that getting the candidates elected unopposed was the major issue after rigging and called upon the government and election commission to bring about a law to curb this practice. 250 candidates of Nazims were elected unopposed which means that 15 million were deprived of their right to elect the Nazims.
He said these candidates were elected unopposed in Dadu, Jacobabad, Ghotki, Dera Bugti and Shikarpur. The large number of unopposed elected in the feudal Sardar dominated areas simply reflect that the voters in these areas were not given the right of vote.
To a question he said the President's public statements in which he urged the people to prefer liberals and progressive over extremists was also indirectly aimed at interfering in the election.