"Christians should actively participate in the February 18 elections”, said Peter Jacob executive secretary of the Pakistan Catholic Church’s National Commission for Justice and Peace in published remarks.
He spoke as security officials confirmed that a suicide bomber rammed his car into a group of people leaving a rally for a local candidate supported by the party of the slain former opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The attack in the town of Parachinar, in the troubled Kurram tribal region bordering Afghanistan, rocked a campaign rally of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, in which also Christians participate.
LIVES LOST
"This incident, one more incident like this, where lives get lost and a large number of people get injured, it definitely does affect the people," said Pakistan’s interior minister, Hamid Nawaz Khan. "It does create an environment of fear, but at the same time we have to surmount this difficulty."
That sentiment was echoed by Jacob. “We have to strengthen the democratic system of the country because the powers of extremism really want to damage this, and to defeat extremists we have to take the risk to come out of our homes and cast our vote", he was quoted as saying by Catholic news agency AsiaNews.
He stressed it was important that Christians “understand that their vote can play important role to reform the system.", Priest Bonnie Mendes, who is director of the Catholic Human Development Center, said Christians have "as for our voting right concern, have moved ahead from the past, with restoration of joint electorate…” which does not discriminates.
NOT SATISFIED
However, he told AsiaNews that, “We are still not satisfied by President Pervez Musharraf’s [efforts to improve Christian] representation at upper and lower houses of the parliament. Christians have to do a lot of work to strengthen the joint electorate"
Church leaders and human rights watchdogs hope Christian politicians will be able to help fight Islamic extremism and controversial blasphemy laws, which led to the imprisonment of Christians or attacks against believers and churches. Pakistan has deployed over 80,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of police and paramilitary forces throughout the country in an effort to provide security for the election.
However Saturday’s violence underscored concerns they may not be able to avoid more attacks. Security fears are running highest in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border, where Christians have been killed, kidnapped and threatened by Muslim militants.
Musharraf’s presidency is not being contested in this election, but if opposition parties win a two-thirds majority in parliament, they would have enough votes to impeach him, the Voice of America network observed. (With BosNewsLife’s Jawad Mazhar in Pakistan and Stefan J. Bos)
