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Transvestite eyes local poll triumph

HARIPUR: Pervez Akhtar Tanoli is a candidate with a difference in Thursday’s local council elections; he’s a transvestite who rails against corruption and vows to help the poor.

Tanoli, or ‘Baby’ as he is known, is running for a seat on a council in a sub-district of Haripur.

“The constituents are my family,” Baby told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. “I have nobody else. My family abandoned me because I am a transvestite.”

The former wedding dancer in his mid-thirties is not new to local politics. He has been councilor for the town of Haripur North since 2002, winning the seat with a record number of votes.

“People have voted for me to work for their benefit, not to dance at weddings,” he says.

“The poor have suffered at the hands of politicians because they put the tax money which is meant for development into their own pockets. I don’t do that and people know this. They know I only work for the poor.”

Unlike in some Asian countries, transvestites, are not generally accepted in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

They are feared for their supposed ability to cast bad spells, or pitied as outcast children of Allah. Many transvestites leave their families or are rejected and abandoned around the age of puberty. Many become dancers or drift into homosexual prostitution and begging.

Baby, whose family have shunned him, says he rejects homosexual behaviour and is a devout Muslim who prays five times a day.

Dressed in a soft pink shalwar kameez, Baby wears earrings and a nose stud. His long black hair held back with a light blue hair clip. Touches of makeup round the eyes and red lipstick complete the picture of an elegant woman.

But it is corruption and poverty that fire him, not sexual politics.

Baby is a supporter of President Pervez Musharraf, the army chief who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, and says army rule is good for Pakistan.

“Levels of corruption have decreased under them,” he says. “The soldier is the guardian of the nation.” The military “oppose corruption, that’s why they are liked,” he adds. Baby is optimistic about winning a seat in Thursday’s polls, saying many people have voiced their support for him.

His friend, Haji Abdul Manan Tanoli, has come all the way from Karachi in Pakistan’s far south to help with Baby’s campaign. “He has no vested interests. He has no sons, no daughters, and no other family members. Whenever he gets money he only invests it in the poor people,” his friend said. reuters

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