Meet Kanwal Shauzab, the only woman running for the Senate’s general seat

Pakistan will be holding elections for half of its upper house, the Senate, on March 3. On the day of the vote, 52 senators will be stepping down. Of the 52 vacancies, 33 - the bulk – are general seats that will be up for grabs from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Islamabad and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The remaining are reserved quotas for women, technocrats and non-Muslims.

The Senate polls are important, since the legislative house has the final vote on any bill before it is made law with the president's assent. Almost all major political parties have fielded candidates — some are running independently — to replace the outgoing members elected on general seats. And almost all are men. Only one is a woman.

Kanwal Shauzab is that woman. The 36-year-old has been named by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party to contest for a general seat in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city.

Shauzab, originally from South Punjab, joined the PTI in 1997, when she was only 15-years-old. She is now serving as the head of the party’s north Punjab female wing.

Two weeks ago, the mother of three received a call on her mobile phone at 10:30 p.m. “Who is calling you at this hour?” her husband asked. Before she could answer, the phone rang again. And then again. “I’ve been offered a ticket for the Senate elections,” she finally replied, bewildered. “Is someone joking with you?” It couldn’t be a joke. Three senior leaders of the party had phoned separately. She was told that her name was put forward due to her educational background and her work for women at the grassroots level. (Shauzab completed her MPhil in political science, governance and public policy from Quaid-i-Azam university). The next day, she hurriedly prepared her papers to take them to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

“The Senate has this tradition,” she tells Geo.tv over phone. “If you are not a million-dollar man, you can’t be a senator. Which is why I am honored that my name came up. Hopefully, this initiative is encouraging for women."

According to the 2017 population census, over 48 percent of Pakistan’s 207.7 million are women. Yet, female lawmakers are underrepresented in both houses of parliament.

In 2013, 17 members of the Senate, a house of 104, were women, estimated the Aurat Foundation, an Islamabad-based NGO.

The last time the Senate went for a vote was in 2015. There are only two women currently in the house who were elected on a general seat. They include Sherry Rehman from the Pakistan People’s Party, who was elected after her party member Abdul Latif Ansari stepped down, and Khushbakht Shujat from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan. Their terms end in 2021. 

Otherwise, women are relegated to the reserved or allocated seats, which ensure that women and minorities have some representation in the house. With a male-dominated upper house, the chairman and deputy chairman will surely also be men.

“For me, the reserved seat is it itself a discrimination,” adds Shauzab, the daughter of a retired army officer. “I am also interested in contesting the national polls from my hometown and I have already conveyed this to my party.”

As for the national assembly, the lower house of parliament, it fares slightly better in representing women. Of the 342 seats of the National Assembly, 71 are occupied by women—10 won on general seats, 60 were nominated on reserved, and one on a non-Muslim seat, according to the National Assembly website.

“I know I won’t be able to win,” she tells Geo.tv. Members of the National Assembly elect senators for Islamabad. In the National Assembly, the Pakistan Muslims League-Nawaz, PTI’s rival party, holds the most number of seats. 

“But in a way I think I have already won. At least now people know that you don’t have to have a certain bank balance to run.”