EDITORIAL: That gender equality is closely linked to women’s participation in the political process is a well-established reality. Sadly, in this country the gender gap remains pretty wide. According to a press report, the number of registered voters in 81 districts out of the total 133 across the country shows a difference of over 10 percent.
This includes 26 out of 33 districts of Balochistan; 28 out of 34 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP); 17 out of 37 of Punjab; and nine out 29 of Sindh. And four districts having less than 40 percent women on electoral rolls are located in Balochistan and the erstwhile federally administered tribal areas of KP, which can be expected given the socio-economic conditions in those regions. Surprisingly, however, in the relatively developed province of Punjab, places like Chakwal and Jhelum boast the highest number of female voters at 49.07 percent and 48.12 percent, respectively, but in the provincial capital Lahore women comprise only 45.51 percent of the registered voters. Similarly in the country’s largest urban centre, Karachi, women’s representation in the electoral process stands at a dismal 41.16 percent.
The disparity between the metropolitan centres and smaller districts, consisting mostly of rural communities, is rather confounding since urban populations are comparatively better educated and exposed to modernising influences.
One explanation could be that in rural areas women still form a substantial part of the workforce and hence are comparatively better positioned than their counterparts in big cities where in majority of cases men, being the bread winners of family, rule the roost.
Women have fewer rights. Either they do not possess national identity cards necessary for voter registration, or the men think women have no business going out of home to take part in a political activity. In fact, female voter obstruction has been a serious issue in different parts of the country, especially in the ultra-conservative Upper and Lower Dir districts of KP as well as certain regions in Punjab.
It was to encourage greater women’s participation that the election law provided that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) could cancel the results in a constituency where the female voter turnout was less than 10 percent. Little seems to have changed all these years. It is worthwhile to note that during the last general elections, out of 46 million registered female voters only 40 percent exercised their statutory right whereas the overall turnout was 51.7 percent. And yet, as the latest data report shows, many eligible female voters do not even figure in the electoral lists.
The ECP should make a concerted effort to enlist all eligible women voters. No less important, political parties need to give better representation to their female members in the distribution of party tickets for contesting elections. That would make the political system truly representative and also responsive to issues that affect the lives of more than half of this country’s population.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
Comments
Comments are closed.