Anthony Naveed has become the first Pakistani Christian to be elected as the deputy speaker of the Sindh Provincial Assembly.
Naveed of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) polled 111 votes to defeat his opponent, Rashid Khan of the Mutthida Qaumi Movement, who got 36 out of the 147 votes.
The 53 years old was the only Christian selected on a reserved seat for minorities in the Assembly. He took oath of office on February 24.
He was born into a Catholic family in Karachi. He got an engineering diploma in garment technology from Pakistan Swedish Institute of Technology.
Naveed has also been engaged actively in community service, serving as vice president of the Karachi Christian Boys Association and representing the Catholic Youth Commission of Pakistan at the World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002.
The new deputy speaker had also worked with Pakistan Christian Congress focusing on educational initiatives and career counselling for the youth in his community.
He started out as a politician in 2005 when the contested as a vice chairman in his native Akhtar Colony on the PPP platform. He later became the special assistant to the Sindh chief minister in the Sindh Assembly where he was the lone Christian lawmaker.
Commenting on his new position, Naveed thanked the PPP leadership for giving him the opportunity to represent it.
He said, “I am grateful to the PPP leadership, especially (party chief) Bilawal, for nominating me for this coveted position.
“The PPP is the only political party that is taking concrete steps to protect the rights of all minorities, including the Christian community, and empowering them socially, politically and economically,” he told Christian Daily International in a telephone interview.
According to the 2017 Census, Pakistan has a Christian population of two to three million, representing 1.27 per cent of the 229 million people. Christianity is the third largest religion in the country after Islam and Hindu.
Most of the Christian communities are found in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Punjab though they are also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, including around 70,000 in Peshawar.
The official religion of Pakistan is Islam.