Contesting Presidency

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 2

Contesting Presidency

The world may soon acquire a woman President. She would be Miss Fatima Jinnah, who is in the middle of an arduous campaign for the Presidential election of Pakistan, which takes place in February. When Miss Jiinnah’s candidacy was announced in Sep-

tember, it was regarded as little more than a brave gesture in a land where even today many women are never seen, let alone heard. But her meetings have aroused so much enthusiasm, that observers consider she has a serious chance of beating her rival, the incumbent President Ayub Khan.

To put her appeal at its most basic level, she has an enormous sentimental hold on the people of Pakistan. She is the sister of the founder and first GovernorGeneral of Pakistan, Mohammed All Jinnah, who died in 1948. Recluse for Decade She gave up a flourishing dental practice in Bombay in the 1930’5, to look after her brother, who was then in exile in London. To her people she is “mother of the nation.”

For the past 10 years she has been something of a recluse. She emerged occasionally to make statements on the state of the nation, and since the military coup of 1958, which put President Ayub Khan in power, these statements have carried particular weight. From the beginning she has disapproved of him. Now at the age of 72, she has agreed to become the champion of the opposition. Her critics say she is too old to take on Presidential responsibilities. But her critics are mostly men, conveniently overlooking the fact that the Presidency of a country tends to be a revered post occupied by an elder statesman. And if an elder statesman, why not an elder stateswoman? (AH Rights Reserved)