By-election 2018: Samar Bilour to be first woman MPA in 16 years

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) candidate for PK-78 Samar Haroon Bilour would be the first woman MPA elected on a general seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last 16 years if her win was confirmed.

The ANP had fielded Samar Haroon Bilour, the widow of Haroon Bilour, to run for PK-78 after her husband was martyred along with 22 others in a suicide attack days before the July 25 general election.

Except the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the major political parties had withdrawn candidates in favour of Samar Haroon as a goodwill gesture.

According to unofficial results, the ANP candidate was leading against her rival Mohammad Irfan of PTI.

The ANP workers started celebrating the win of the brave lady soon after coming to know she was going to win the contest.

Samar Haroon Bilour would be the first woman in 16 years to have won a general seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The last time a woman who won a seat through direct elections was Ghazala Habib Tanoli, a female MPA elected on ticket of the then Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao, now renamed as Qaumi Watan Party.

Before that Begum Nasim Wali Khan, the widow of great Pakhtun nationalist leader Abdul Wali Khan, remained opposition leader in the then NWFP Assembly after being elected as MPA in the 1997 general election.

The Bilour family lost two key members in suicide attacks in the last few years.

Haroon Bilour fell victim to a suicide attack during his election rally near Kohati Gate locality in the provincial capital in July.

Before that Haroon’s father and the then senior minister in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Bashir Ahmad Bilour was assassinated in a suicide blast in December 2012.

The family instead of giving in to the cowardly attacks fielded a brave woman to run for the seat. The head of the Bilour family and former federal minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour in a statement thanked the voters and all the parties that supported the ANP candidate in the by-elections.

Meanwhile, a number of people fired shots in the air after the victory of ANP in Pk-78. There were reports that at least one person was wounded and taken to the Lady Reading Hospital after hit by stray bullet. The Capital City Police authorities said two accused involved in celebratory firing had been arrested.