NA-120: Know your candidates

Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz: Begum Kulsoom Nawaz

Year of birth: 1950

• Begum Kulsoom Nawaz is the former First Lady of Pakistan.

• She is the granddaughter of Ghulam Muhammad, famously known as Gaama Pehelwan.

• Kulsoom Nawaz completed her primary education from Madrassa-Tul-Banat and her matriculated from the Lady Griffin High School. She later attended the Forman Christian College for her undergraduate studies.

• During the course of her Masters at the Punjab University, she was engaged to Nawaz Sharif.

• Nawaz remained uninterested in politics until her husband’s second term as prime minister came to an abrupt end. After Nawaz Sharif was jailed under the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharaf in 1999, his wife openly campaigned for his release and galvanized the political party.

• In June 2000, she was appointed the interim president of the PML-N. She held this position for two years. A month later, Musharraf placed her under house arrest to deter her from leading the Karvan Tahafuz Pakistan rally against the military ruler. Yet, undeterred, she led the political rally anyways, until the police arrested her.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf - Dr. Yasmin Rashid

Date of birth: September 21, 1950

• Dr. Rashid was born and raised in Chakwal, from where she completed her elementary education.

• On moving to Lahore, she enrolled at the Convent of Jesus and Mary.

• In 1978, she graduated from the MBBS program at the Fatima Jinnah Medical University, Lahore.

• In 1984, she attended the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the United Kingdom.

• Prior to joining politics, she held many important positions, including serving as the President of the Pakistan Medical Association Center, Chairperson of the Taskforce Women Development, and Chairperson of the Women Health Committee in Punjab.

• Rashid married into a political family. Her father in law, who had been a part of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s cabinet, advised her to join the PTI, which she did in 2010.

• In the 2013 national elections, she secured over 52,000 votes in NA-120—the highest number of votes to date any candidate has been able to gather in the constituency against Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan People’s Party - Faisal Mir

Date of Birth: August 14, 1967

• Mir is the son of Waris Mir, a well-known journalist and author in Pakistan.

• For schooling, the PPP ticket holder attended the Government Central Model High School in Lahore. He then went on to obtain a Bachelor in Commerce from the Punjab University’s Hailey College.

• Later, he got a Masters degree in Public Administration also from the Punjab University.

• During General Zia ul Haq’s tenure, a young Mir had to face legal persecution as a result of his father’s political activism.

• In 1990, he founded the People’s Student Federation in Hailey College and was selected as its president.

• Mir contested the 2013 national elections for the PP-154 constituency in Lahore, however he received only 1,718 votes.

Jamaat-e-Islami - Advocate Ziauddin Ansari

Date of Birth: December 5, 1959

• Completed his Bachelors in Law in 1987 from the Federal Government Urdu Law College at the Karachi University.

• Obtained a Masters in politics in 1988 from the Punjab University, Lahore.

• Ansari is a former leader of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of the JI.

• From 1988 to 1991, he was the General Secretary of the Pakistan Railways Employees (PREM), a labor union.

• For a year after 2000, he was the senior vice president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association.

• Ansari contested the local body polls in 2001 and 2005. In the latter elections, he was elected the Nazim of the Union Council 74 from Lahore.

Data compiled with help from Geo’s Election Cell