Pakistan, in a short time, has witnessed several positive laws being promulgated in favour of equality for women. The women selected to special seats at the federal and provincial levels, including the few elected directly have been asserting their position to increase women’s participation in every walk of life and to eradicate violence against women, perpetuated due to the mindset that women are not equal to men. In this situation, when women parliamentarians are struggling for the uplift of women and their status, political parties have banded together to stop 53,000 women from exercising their adult franchise.
Stopping women from casting votes was not done by religious fundamentalist political parties but from the secular parties that vehemently claim that they are for the equal rights of women. And this was done through a written agreement on 10 May 2013 during the general elections, and in this 7 May by-elections this contract has been renewed.
Women from Dir District Constituency PK-95, Lower Dir-II Khyber Pakthunkhuwa (KPK) Province of Pakistan, were stopped from casting their vote in by poll election held on 7 May 2015. None of the 53,000 registered female voters showed up to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Though women of Dir are quite educated, they have not been allowed to participate in political decision-making.
The absence of women from a Pakistan by-election has provoked an outcry, with the Provincial Commission on the Status of Women, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, civil society organizations urging the Election Commission of Pakistan to order a new election. According to a May 18 report in the The Express Tribune, around 12 women from the constituency have approached the Peshawar High Court and filed a petition, asking for the election to be declared null and void. The petition has made the Chief Election Commissioner, Provincial Election Commissioner, returning officers, and the winning and losing candidates as respondents.
Stopping women from casting their vote is not only a denial of their right of expression, but this ban on voting, in fact, is a denial of all their rights. If they do not obey, the women will not be able to get permission to go to a doctor, school, or get job, all of which are more cultural aspects rather than religion based.
Mr. I.A. Rehman, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in his May 14 article in Dawn titled “Enforcing women’s Right to vote”, reveals that
“Women were barred from exercising their right to vote in the by-election in PK-95 by verbal agreement among candidates including the main contenders belonging to Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Awami National Party (ANP). The political bosses of the area thus maintained their record of forcibly denying their womenfolk their fundamental right to vote; a woman who had defied a similar ban in 2013 was ostracized”.
The history of the collusion amongst political parties dates back to 10 May 2013, whereby an agreement was signed that the women of Dir District would be barred from exercising their constitutional right to vote. A copy of the contract can be accessed here.
The contract states that due to the prevailing law and order situation in the province, women will not be allowed to vote. The contract also states that any party or person found to have infringed the contract will be liable to pay Rupees five million fine to the other party and that the polling station where any vote is caste by women will be sealed and the ballot papers laid to waste.
Such organized disenfranchisement of women voters is unprecedented in Lower Dir. Maulana Siraj Ul Haq the head of Jamat-i-Islami, a religious-political party, who earlier claimed that “Women of Lower Dir have more better things at home to do than casting vote” has now come out in favor of women’s enfranchisement as he fears his orthodox stance will not resonate well with the liberal and educated views of the women of lower Dir.
Mr I.A. Rehman has further alleged in his article that no polling material was distributed among the staff at women’s polling booths. This showcases where democracy stands in Pakistan. The 2013 electoral process was mired with serious allegations of mass organized rigging; these revelations will now further tarnish the weak state of democracy in Pakistan.
It is feared that the disenfranchisement will set a precedent in the next general election and women’s right to vote will once again be snatched from them. The irony is that the so-called progressive and liberal political parties such as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf have also connived in the conspiracy against women voters.
Casting vote is the fundamental right of every Pakistani woman and if women are barred from exercising their voting rights, how can such election be termed legitimate?
Pakistani women were granted the suffrage in 1947 under the Pakistan Ordinance, and the right was reaffirmed in the national elections in 1956 under the interim Constitution. The provision of reservation of seats for women in Parliament has existed throughout the constitutional history of Pakistan.
According to media reports, the practice of barring women from exercising their voting rights has been going on for years in several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), where the conservative tribal customs have traditionally barred women from coming out in the public sphere. The men in Shangla, Upper and Lower Dir, Bannu, Battagram, Kohistan and Tor Ghar districts of KPK Province do not allow their women to vote. Normally before every election, workers of political parties take ID cards from female voters and cast their vote according to a formula agreed upon by all the contesting candidates.
The Dir election has unveiled the true state of the rule of law and the failure of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in creating a safe and secure environment for the women to cast their vote and ensuring women participation in an important political decision. Barring half of the population from casting their vote is a clear mockery of democracy and speaks volumes about the state of women in Pakistan. While Pakistani women in Britain are being elected as Members of Parliament their sisters back at home are being disenfranchised.
Pakistan has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2010 and the Convention of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1996. CEDAW unambiguously provides “the basis for realizing equality between women and men through ensuring women’s equal access to, and equal opportunities in, political and public life — including the right to vote and to stand for election”. Article 34 of the Constitution of Pakistan states, “Steps shall be taken to ensure full participation of women in all spheres of national life.” These covenants and the constitutional provision obligate the government and the ECP to take all measures necessary to ensure that women’s right to vote can be implemented throughout the country.
The Asian Human Rights Commission demands that the Election Commission of Pakistan declare the election of Dir PK-95 as null and void and orders re-election in the constituency. The ECP must ensure full participation of women voters, so that women of Pakistan, especially those of Dir, are not disenfranchised in the future.
Pakistani women have traditionally been denied their fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution, such as the right to property and the right to life and they are now being denied even the right to vote. The example of Dir elections is alarming as the national political parties, who are proud of posing themselves as being above religious affiliations, are appeasing populist sentiments that seek to keep women away from the future development of democracy. The Dir phenomenon, of keeping women away from general elections, has been continuing for a decade but no political party is ready to take a stand against it.
This process of denying the right to vote has spread to some parts of Gilgit-Baltistan and the northern areas of Pakistan, known as FATA. In Karachi, the nation’s biggest city, during the 2013 general elections, this formula was attempted in some suburbs which had settlements of people from the northern areas and migrants from Afghanistan, but it did not work.
There are chances that after success in Dir, where 53,000 women have been barred, the process will now be attempted again and spread to different parts of Pakistan, including Karachi, if the institutions of democracy do not take immediate actions to stop the same.
The Judiciary is also equally responsible for perpetuating such practices of disenfranchising women; elections are held under the supervision of presiding officers hired from the Judiciary. Even in cases where such elections are not held directly under judicial officers, the Judiciary’s silence in the face of such electoral practices cannot be ignored.
The highest judiciary of Pakistan must take notice of the disfranchisement of women by political polital parties in Dir District and declare the elections null and void; the sustainability of the democracy dependent on the participation of all sections of the society, particularly the women, who are 49 percent of the population of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government and the Election Commission have a duty to monitor the rights of women that are supposed to be guaranteed under the democratic process. They must immediately hold re-elections in the Dir constituency and make all arrangements for women to cast their vote.
