Pakistanis, world politicians elected from jails

LAHORE: Karachi’s new Mayor, Waseem Akhtar, has now joined the exclusive club of Pakistani and international politicians who emerged triumphant in ballot exercises while still in prison, but most of them had even continued doing their official file work in embarrassing and frustrating conditions.

Here follow a few examples:

Research shows that while Pakistan’s former President Asif Ali Zardari was elected to the National Assembly from jail during the October 1990 elections, he also became a Senator in March 1997 when he was serving time in a Karachi prison.

Renowned American think-tank “Global Security” had written: “Zardari was targeted for vilification and persecution and bore the hardship with fortitudeHe spent eleven and a half years in prison in conditions often unacceptable by human rights standards, without any charge ever being proven against him. He won election as MNA and as Senator while in prison.”

Former Bangladeshi President and Army Chief, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, was elected from prison in the 1991 and 1996 elections. He was behind bars on several counts of corruption, but had returned victorious from five different constituencies across Bangladesh.

A five-time American Presidential candidate, Eugene Victor Debs (1855-1926), had contested unsuccessfully for President in 1920, while he was languishing in an Atlanta prison for 10 years on sedition charges.

Debs had received 919,799 votes.

President Warren Harding had commuted his sentence in December 1921.

In June 2016, a Romanian mayor, Catalin Chereches, had registered a landslide victory in the local elections although he was behind bars.

He was arrested in April 2016 on bribery charges, but claimed that the case against him had been set up by his political opponents who had been trying to get control of the Baia Mare city in Romania.

In August 2016, a sitting Mexican mayor was arrested in connection with the murder of 10 people whose bodies had been set ablaze.

It was also in August 2016 that two American mayors were handcuffed.

While Virginia’s Fairfax County Mayor, Richard Silverthorne, was arrested in a sex scam; one of his Californian counterparts, Anthony Silva, was taken into custody for playing strip poker with a minor and on charges of providing alcohol to the youth.

(References: The Los Angeles Times and NBC News)

In May 2016, a mayor in Philippines was re-elected despite being in jail on multiple murder charges.

The jailed Iligan City Mayor, Celso Regencia, had bagged 68,995 votes, while his opponent Rudy Marzo had got the nod of 37,029 voters.

In January 2016, a Chicago politician, Robert Battle, was sworn in from jail, where he was facing drug and murder charges.

The “Washington Post” had stated: “The councilman is currently behind bars on multiple felony charges. And while he certainly isn’t the first politician to face legal trouble, he does face quite the uphill battle, so to speak. It is not often, after all, that an elected official is accused of murdering a man in cold blood during a drug deal. Robert Battle has pleaded not guilty. But the gruesome alleged crime is causing serious problems for his party. In the meantime, Battle keeps his seat — and his $42,365 salary.”

It was also in January 2016 that more than 100 Turkish municipalities were probed and 10 mayors were jailed across the country.

In January 2015, as a “Reuters” news agency report had suggested, a convicted Virginia state legislator had won election while in jail

The “Reuters” had added: “Joseph Morrissey, a longtime Virginia legislator who ran his latest campaign while serving a jail sentence for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, has won his bid for re-election to the state House of Delegates in a special election. With all precincts reporting in Virginia's 74th house district, unofficial returns showed Morrissey, a former Democrat turned independent, capturing 42.3 percent of the vote.”