Pakistani Origin Abid Raja Gets Elected as the VP of Norway’s Parliament

Abid Qayyum Raja, a Norwegian of Pakistani descent who is a lawyer and a Liberal Party politician in Norway as well, has been elected as the Vice President of his country’s parliament this Saturday.

He has been elected as the 5^th Vice President of the Storting (the supreme legislature of Norway based in Oslo).

A total of 5 vice presidents and 1 president were elected. Olemic Thommessen got re-elected as the President and Nils T. Bjorke, Magne Rommetveit, Eva Kristin Hansen, Morten Wold and Raja as the five vice presidents.

This is not the first time a Pakistani-Norwegian got elected as a Vice President, Abid Raja is the second representative from the Pakistani-Norwegian community. Previously, Akhtar Chaudry – a Pakistani-Norwegian of Lahori descent – was the first one from the community to get elected as a vice president. He had been elected as the 4^th Vice President (a deputy speaker).

A Norwegian publication says that Raja believes his election has symbolic significance because someone with his background has entered the presidency in Norway. He said,

The fact that I, who has a Muslim background and grew up in a municipal apartment in a poor immigrant family with a mother who was illiterate, have entered the presidency shows what it is possible to achieve in Norway.

It will have [a] symbolic effect both abroad and inside Norway that we can showcase [the cultural] diversity in our country.

Abid Raja was born in Oslo – the capital of Norway. He graduated from University of Southampton, England as a lawyer. His parents migrated to Norway from Gujrat. His father, Abdul Qayyum Raja worked as a factory worker in Christiania Spigerverk steel plant in Nydalen and his mother Akhtar Nasim was a homemaker.

Via AbcNyheter