Political parties had unofficially agreed that women be barred from casting their votes in a constituency of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Dir district. – File Photo

Thousands of female voters of PK-95, a constituency for the KP provincial assembly in Lower Dir, were left disappointed after the Peshawar High Court stayed the Election Commission’s order for re-polling for the seat over an alleged ban on women voters during the May by-elections.

“We were very happy with the Election Commission’s decision of re-polling until the high court stayed the order,” says a dismayed Gul Bibi — a resident of Samar Bagh area of Lower Dir district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“Our male members do not allow us to attend political gatherings and also stop us from voting,” she says, adding that being politically active for women of her region is not easy.

None of the around 53,000 women voters in the constituency had turned up to exercise their right during the by-election held on May 7. The seat had fallen vacant because Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq had resigned from it after being elected as a senator.

Deprived of exercising their right to vote, the women were thrilled that the election commission had noticed their absence during the by-election and had ordered re-election for the seat.

The ECP took notice of the matter when reports emerged that political parties had in effect barred women from taking part in the electoral exercise and questions were raised about how such polls could be termed free and fair.

This became the first case where the ECP had annulled election results and ordered re-polling due to the absence of female voters.

What the female voters have to say

Like the activists who stood against the jirga ban, the female voters of the constituency also voice their disappointment over the coordinated attempt to disenfranchise them, even if in an unofficial manner.

Prior to the ECP’s order, women had also demanded of the commission to declare the election null and void saying they were not allowed to participate in the voting process.

“We are thought to only participate in house chores,” Gul Bibi says, adding that partaking in the polling process, let alone engaging in politics, becomes a challenge for women in her community.

The local women moreover say that the men in their families and communities do not discuss the elections with them and also stop them from attending political gatherings.

“A day before the by-election, announcements were made through load-speakers in mosques, asking women to remain indoors during the polling,” claims Afshan Bibi, another registered voter from PK-95.

She added that the government and district administration played the role of silent spectators in this scenario, asking how the women of the constituency could challenge the jirga’s decision and cast their votes in the given situation.

Afshan Bibi is among a number of women who believe that strong political forces can play an active role in alerting the public about the importance of the participation of female voters. Unfortunately, local elders associated with major political parties also seem to be against women in the constituency going out to vote.

Legislation needed to empower voters, ECP

Calling for the need for proper legislation to ensure female voters are not stopped by local jirgas and their decisions, local women rights activist Shad Begum says it is the responsibility of political parties to stress the importance of female voter participation and to encourage women to vote.

She adds that without proper legislation to protect members of a society and a community from arbitrary decisions of jirgas, it would be difficult to challenge these acts.

So far there have been no concrete development on a re-election in PK-95, but what is evident is that irrespective of the outcome, the election commission’s order of re-polling in the seat over non-participation of female voters remains a historic, unprecedented measure.

Former Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan, Kanwar Dilshad, says that the polling body has to be made autonomous for the people to be able to effectively discourage “such agreements as made by jirgas and local elders”.

Incentives, awareness needed

Barring women from voting in elections is not a new practice and is regarded as customary in parts of the country. Similar instances were witnessed in the May 2013 general elections during which several constituencies saw problematic turnouts of female voters following formal arrangements between local representatives of political parties with pacts aiming at barring women from exercising their right to vote. A similar situation had also arisen in Lower Dir at the time.

A scanned copy of a document that shows political parties agreed to stop women from voting in PK-95 in 2013.

Although widely condemned, these practices appear to go on unchecked, primarily on account of a lack of political will. Political parties also adopt this practice to ensure support from interest groups in certain areas. These realities are not helped by the fact that the state has also been weak at working out awareness programmes to challenge such practices.

Muddassir Rizvi, head of programmes at the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), says that without political incentives and proper awareness, it would be difficult to encourage turnout rates.

He adds that as opposed to the female turnout in the PK-95 by-election, the participation of women voters in the recently held local government election in Lower Dir was “very encouraging”.

He is of the view that in the local government elections, the women still come out and cast their vote, “for which the credit goes to female candidates who run election campaigns despite facing a number of hurdles”.

Saying that the issue remains under discussion in court as well as in other relevant forums, Rizvi adds that “there is a dire need to amend the Representation of People Act 1996”.

Can ECP annul election results over low female voter turnout?

With the recent PHC stay order, questions have come up as to whether the ECP can in fact annul election results over the non-participation or low turnout of female voters in a constituency.

Tahir Mehdi of the Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and advocacy group with an interest in understanding governance and democracy, says that "the ECP has no proper law and system to declare the results null and void in this respect".

“We are talking about low turnout rates and non-participation of women, but the ECP has no mechanism to analyse the turnout of female voters during elections.”

He laments that the participation of women in political activities is decreasing day by day, adding that the issue did not affect the women of Lower Dir alone and that women across the country are facing a similar situation.