PESHAWAR - The political parties have dodged the Election Commission of Pakistan orders of awarding tickets on at least five percent of the general seats to the women by fielding the women candidates in the constituencies where the respective political parties have the least chances of success.

A look into the final lists of contenders for the general election reveals that majority of the parties have fielded women candidates in such constituencies from where their candidates had been unsuccessful during the last three general elections, or even since 1977.  Also, some the political parties or alliances, including the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), did not even comply with the ECP orders.

The MMA has fielded 95 candidates on the general seats Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, out of which only one is a female candidate. The MMA has fielded Farzana Rehan from PK-41 Haripur from where no party in the alliance could ever secure a victory.  Furthermore, the alliance has not issued a single ticket to women candidates for the National Assembly.

In response to a query regarding the political parties having not met the ECP requirement of allocating 5 per cent general seats to women, spokesperson for KP Election Commission Sohail said that they were waiting for the directives of the chief election commissioner in this regard. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which ruled the province for 5 years, issued only 5 KP Assembly seats to women in which only one seat, Harripur PK-42, was won by the party in the previous general election.

Faisal Zaman, now contesting as independent candidate, had won this seat on the PTI ticket in the 2013 general elections. On the remaining 4 seats, the PTI had either not fielded its candidate or had bagged a few hundred votes only.

For example, the PTI issued PK-26 Lower Kohistan ticket to Sidra Gul, where PTI had secured only 124 votes in the previous general election. Similarly, it had bagged only 917 votes on PK-34 Mansehra-V (old PK-57) where it had fielded Zahida Sabeel.

The same situation was in PK-30 Mansehra-I (old PK-53) and PK-10 Upper Dir (old PK-92) where its candidates had bagged only 10,600 and 2,912 votes, respectively.

While issuing ticket to Hamida Shahid for PK-10 Upper Dir, the PTI had announced that it was the same constituency in Upper Dir where women were not allowed to cast votes”.

“Chairman PTI has decided to field a woman from that constituency instead of a male because of the same reason,” the statement had said.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is the only party that has fielded women candidates for at least two such constituencies where it is expected to at least give tough time to the opponents.

The PPP allocated 3 NA seats and 4 KP Assembly seats to female workers that include NA-17 Haripur, NA-27 Peshawar-II, NA-35 Bannu, PK-38 Abbottabad-III, PK-49 Mardan, PK-88 and PK-89, Bannu-II and III. The ECP data shows that the PPP had never won from NA- 17 Haripur since 1977 where Shaista Naz will contest on its ticket during the coming general election. In the last general election, the PPP candidate had stood 5th, securing 16,300 votes.

However, NA-27 Peshawar and PK-49 Mardan are the constituencies from where PPP candidates Asma Alamgir and Khaista Bibi are expected to bag handsome votes as PPP had won from these constituencies in the past.

NA-27 consists of areas cut off NA-2 (Peshawar-II) and NA-3 (Peshawar-III) in the fresh delimitation by the ECP. Arbab Alamgir, husband of Asma Alamgir, of PPP had won NA-2 in 2008 general elections.

The then PPP candidate and now in PTI Noor Alam Khan had won NA-3 seat in the 2008 general election. From NA-35 Bannu, the PPP has not won election after the 1993 general elections. In 1993, PPP’s Malik Muzaffar Khan had won the seat.  In 2013 general election, the PPP KP President Anwar Saifullah Khan had secured only 2,320 votes.

Similarly, from PK-88 and PK-89 Bannu, where Syeda Yasmin Safdar and Mehar Sultana are contesting, respectively, never proved fruitful for the PPP. In the last general election, the PPP had secured only 496 votes from PK-89.

Aqeel Yousafzai, a senior journalist and political analyst, said that the PPP had no chance of securing or staging close contest on these constituencies except NA-27 where Asma Alamgir is contesting against the PTI’s Noor Alam.

PML-N issued more NA tickets to women than other political parties in terms of percentage as the party has issued 3 NA seats to women, having fielded 43 candidates from KP and its tribal districts. The PML-N has fielded Sobia Khan for NA-7 Lower Dir and NA-27 Peshawar while Begum Tahira Bukhari would contest for NA-23 Charsadda. However, the party never won from Peshawar and Charsadda constituencies in the political history of the country.

Similarly, the PML-N issued 3 KP Assembly ticket to women candidates including Sumera for Charsadda PK-58, and Jamila Paracha from Kohat, PK-80 and PK-82.  The record shows that the PML-N had showed poor performance in these constituencies during the previous elections.

ANP, which claims of providing equal opportunities to the women in the party, having no women wing for the reason, is also not different from the PML-N and the PTI.  The ANP has awarded 2 NA and 5 KP Assembly tickets to women candidates for those constituencies where they had never won or contested since independence. The ANP has fielded Iffat Kalsoom for NA-13 Mansehra-I and Iram Fatimah for NA-17 Harripur.

Iram had bagged 3,633 votes from this constituency in the last general election. The party had never contested on these constituencies before that.

Similarly, the ANP awarded 5 KP Assembly seats to women including 2 in Harripur, PK-40 to Shaheen and PK-41 to Saira Sayed, and 3 in Abbottabad where they fielded Robina Zahid, Rukhsana and Shehnaz Raja from PK- 36, PK-37, and PK-38, respectively.

On majority of these seats, the ANP either did not contest in the past or bagged very few votes.

Qaumi Wattan Party (QWP) also allocated 3.1 per cent of its total seats to women and fielded 3 woemn candidates on PK-37, Abbottabad, PK-51 Mardan and PK-72 Peshawar-VII.

The ECP record shows that the QWP had not filed candidates in PK-37 and PK-51 in the last election and in PK-72 Peshawar-VII, its candidate Amir Khan had got merely 1,145 votes.

Aurat Foundation chairperson Shabina Ayaz said that majority of political parties violated the article 206, 209, 2010 and 202 of the Political Parties Act by not allocating five per cent general seats to women.  She said that the ECP should not allocate them party symbols and take action against these parties.

Shahwana Shah, who runs an organisation for women empowerment, said that practically, all political parties were not gender sensitive. “Look at their manifestos; there is nothing for women rights and empowerment; these parties are only giving positions to women, not empowering women,” she said.

Section 206 of the Election Act 2017 was incorporated in the law as a result of consensus among all the parliamentary players to increase representation of women, which constitute almost 49 per cent of the national population. The total votes in the province are around 17,826,453 and women votes are 76,612,720.