Our Candidates

Ammar Rashid (NA-53) is a development professional, researcher and academic by profession, who has been a leading member of the Awami Workers Party since its founding in 2012. He has been especially involved in AWP's struggle for the right to shelter and affordable housing in Islamabad and organized political and legal resistance to the illegal and inhumane eviction drive by the government in 2015. As a student, Ammar was deeply involved in the movement against the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf in 2007, during which he started the underground Emergency Times newsletter against the military regime. He has a BSc (Hon) in Economics from LUMS and a master's degree in development studies from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. As a professional, Ammar has been involved in research and teaching work on themes ranging from public education and health reform, the political economy of public policy, sub-national governance, gender and development and tax reform. He has previously taught at the Gender studies department at Quaid-e-Azam University and at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). Ammar is also a musician, regularly performing revolutionary songs and poetry at political events. He is married with a one year-old son.

Ismat Shahjahan's (NA-54) entire life has revolved around progressive political struggle. Hailing from a small village in district Karak and belonging to a khudai khidmatgar family, Ismat Raza Shahjahan joined revolutionary politics as a student leader in 1983. In 1986, Ismat joined the Democratic Students Federation (DSF), a leftist organisation. Later she became a part of the Communist Party Pakistan (CPP) and actively worked with the Muttahida Labour Federation (MLF), a labour front of CPP. She also established the Democratic Women's Association (DeWA), a feminist front of the CPP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She remained part of democtric movements against military dictatorships, anti-war and anti-state oppression campaigns. Ismat played a key role in laying the foundation of the Awami Workers Party, a platform for combining the progressive forces in Pakistan and rebuilding the left. More recently, Ismat has played a pioneering role in building a socialist feminist movement, the Women Democratic Front, which has chapters all over Pakistan. Ismat is a retired internationals finance specialist. She studied public administration from Peshawar Univeristy and development studies from the Institue of Social Studies in the Hague. She remained a publisher of the progressive revolutionary journal "Leekwal".

Fanoos Gujjar has been active in progressive political circles since his youth, actively helping to organize landless peasants, underrepresented ethnic communities and religious minorities in the Malakand regions since the late 1970s. He has a substantial vote bank in the area having run for elections on numerous occasions from various constituencies in Buner and Shangla. He has also generated a huge following in cities across the country based on his tireless campaigning and advocacy work. One of the last in the generation of full-time political workers, Fanoos Sb is one of a kind. He is currently the federal president of the Awami Workers Party.

Hassan Askari has been involved in left politics and organizing work for more than fifty years, starting off as a worker in the National Awami Party and the Pakistan Kissan Committee in the 1960s. He has since been part of the leadership of numerous progressive parties such as the Pakistan Socialist Party, Awami Jamhoori Party, and the National Workers Party. Hasan Askari has been intimately involved in every major political movement in Sanghar for the past four decades and is a well-respected political figure in the district. It is on this basis that he will be standing for elections against the might of the Pir of Pagara and other entrenched scions of Sanghar! Hassan Askari currently serves as AWP's federal peasants secretary.

Ziauddin Bhatti is a veteran trade union and political worker, and is currently a member of AWP's national committee.

Chaudhry Mohammad Zubair is an experienced political leader who has not only participated in all movements of workers and peasants in Toba Tek Singh district, but he also played an important role in building them. Mohammad Zubair is the nephew of the famous peasant leader Chaudhry Fateh Mohammad, under whose leadership he had the responsibility of organising the Kissan Committee.