PESHAWAR: Though the Election Commission of Pakistan launched a special campaign to reduce gender gap among voters, a wide disparity has been found between male and female voter registration for the July 2 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s elections in the merged tribal districts with some constituencies reporting over 20 per cent variation.

The updated electoral list released by the ECP on Friday showed that a total of 2.8 million voters, including 1.67 million men (59.65 per cent) and 1.13 million women (40.34 per cent) were registered in 16 election constituencies in the merged tribal districts, formerly known as Fata as a region.

The disparity between male and female voter registration is evident in PK-114, South Waziristan-II, where of the total 167,994 voters, 115,572 (68.79 per cent) are men and 52,422 (31.20 per cent) women. The gap between male and female voters in the constituency is over 37 per cent.

Some constituencies have over 20pc more male voters than female ones

In PK-112, North Waziristan, of the total of 179,124 voters, 117,811 (65.77 per cent) are men and 61,313 (34.22 per cent) women putting the gender gap voters at above 31 per cent.

The variation is over 20 per cent in the two constituencies of Mohmand district.

In PK-103, Mohmand-II, the registered voters total 110,477, including 68,469 (61.97 per cent) men and 42,008 (38.02 per cent) women, while PK- 104, Mohmand-II, has 170,022 voters, including 106,749 (62.78 per cent) men and 63,273 (37.21 per cent) women.

The PK-100 Bajaur-I constituency has also over 20 per cent voter registration gap as of the 156,237 voters, the number of male voters is 94,937 (60.76) compared to 61,300 female voters (39.23).

The six former Frontier Regions of Bannu, DI Khan, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Tank and Peshawar collectively form a single constituency having 191,062 voters, including 116,444 men (60.94 per cent) and 74,618 women (39.05 per cent) voters, showing variation of over 21 per cent.

While in six of the constituencies the variation is over 20 per cent, in rests of the 10 constituencies it is over 10 per cent.

Early this year the ECP’s Gender and Disability Wing had announced launching special campaign for reducing gender-gap among voters specially focusing on increasing issuance of computerised national identity cards to women in erstwhile Fata.

During General Election 2018, total registered voters in Fata were 2.509 million out of which 1.507 million (60.08 per cent) were men and one million (39.91 per cent) women.

The data showed a slight improvement as registered male voters in those areas total 59.65 per cent compared to 40.34 per cent of female ones.

The Election Act 2017 makes it binding on the ECP to publish the disaggregated data of registered men and women voters in each National assembly and Provincial Assembly Constituency highlighting the difference in number of registered men and women voters.

Under Section 47 (2) of the Elections Act, where the variation in the disaggregated data is more than 10 per cent in a constituency, the ECP shall take special measures to reduce such variation.

According to the updated electoral list, the highest number of 534,003 voters, including 314,644 (58.92 per cent) men and 219,359 (41.07 per cent) women, has been registered in Bajaur tribal district followed by 532,087 voters in Khyber tribal district, including 301,015 (56.57 per cent) men and 231,072 (43.42 per cent) women.

South Waziristan has 386,829 voters, 237,769 men (61.46 per cent) and 149,060 women (38.53 per cent); Kurram tribal district 360,741 including 204,818 men (56.77 per cent) and 155,923 women (43.22 per cent); North Waziristan 320,177 including 210,656 men (65.79 per cent) and 109,521 women (34.20 per cent); Mohmand 280,499 including 175,218 men (62.46 per cent) and 105,281 women (37.53 per cent), and Orakzai 196,436 including 110,741 men and (56.37 per cent) and 85,695 women (43.62 per cent).

If constituencies are seen, the highest number of voters i.e. 218,835 is registered in PK-113 South Waziristan-I where 122,197 (55.83 per cent) are men and 96,638 (44.16 per cent) women.

The second highest number of voters i.e. 216,719 are in PK-102 Bajaur-III, including 125,358 men (57.84 per cent) and 91,361 women (42.15 per cent).

According to the delimitation of the constituencies carried out by the ECP, Bajaur and Khyber tribal districts have three provincial assembly constituencies each, Mohmand, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal districts two each, and the six former Frontier Regions of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan and Tank one seat in the KP Assembly.

Besides 16 general seats, the provincial assembly elections have four seats reserved for women and one for non-Muslims in former Fata. Polling will be held on July 2.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2019