Published December 16, 2021 in Dawn.com.
PESHAWAR: Women election candidates on Wednesday urged the Election Commission of Pakistan to ensure that women aren’t denied the right to vote anywhere in the province, especially in the merged tribal districts, during the Dec 19 local body elections.
They also regretted the failure of political parties to field women for mayor or chairperson elections in 66 tehsil councils of 17 districts and said only one party, Qaumi Watan Party, had awarded ticket to a woman for that election in Haripur.
Those candidates spoke during the Women in Local Government Convention jointly organised by Aurat Foundation and South Asia Partnership Pakistan here.
According to organisers, the event was meant to highlight the ‘plight’ of women candidates and create awareness for better women’s participation in the political process. It was also attended by women election candidates and former and current lawmakers.
The participants passed a resolution urging the ECP to reduce Rs5,000 fee for participation in local body elections to ensure more and more people contest for reserved seats in the next phase.
They also demanded amendments to the Elections Act, 2017, for binding political parties to award five per cent of LG election tickets to women like the National and provincial assembly polls.
Aurat Foundation programme officer Saima Munir said a false impression had been created that women could contest elections only for the seats reserved for them in village and neighborhood councils and not for general and other seats reserved for youth, peasant/workers, and minorities.
She claimed that some ECP returning officers had discouraged women from filing nomination papers for general seat elections.
The participants demanded of the ECP to impose the condition of re-polling in a constituency, where votes cast by women were less than 10 per cent of the total votes polled, to polling stations so that women couldn’t be stopped from exercising their right to vote in any area.
They asked political parties to ensure effective participation of women in their decision-making process.
Several women candidates complained that their and their family’s votes were shifted to other areas without any notice.
They also insisted that in some cases, nomination papers were rejected just because votes of proposers or seconders were shifted to other village councils.
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January 30, 2022