Women’s participation: Re-polling sought over poor turnout of women

Only one of the 14,000 registered women voters had cast her vote on November 19

MULTAN:

The Khanewal returning officer has ordered fresh polling in UC-25 in Mohripur village near Kabeerbala over a poor turnout of women voters in the local government election on November 19.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Returning Officer Malik Younus said he had written to the Election Commission of Pakistan over the disappointing participation of women in the election.

He said the decision had been made with the consensus of all candidates who agreed that poling should be held afresh in all polling stations where participation from women voters was less than 10 per cent.

Younus said of the 14,000 registered women voters, only one had showed up on the polling day.

He said women’s turnout was very low in four constituencies with five votes cast at two polling stations set up for women only. He said no votes were cast at four other women-only polling stations.

He said the overall turnout was less than 10 per cent.

Mian Hammad Raza Sahu, a candidate for Mohripur union council chairman, said that he had tried to persuade people to allow women to votes but had failed.

Haji Karamat Ali Sahu, another candidate for chairman said the ECP should ensure the participation of women in local government elections.

He said the district administration should urge people to allow women to cast their votes.

New bag of votes holds up election result announcement

Despite two vote counts, the returning officer in Mianwali has not announced the final result for the local government election in UC-18 Qureshian Dillaywali.

Instead, he has approached the Election Commission of Pakistan for a final decision in this regard.

Presiding officer Muhammad Zubair had initially announced that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) candidate for chairman Khan Muzaffar Khan had secured 498 votes. His rival, Ahmad Nawaz Khan Niazi, of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) had bagged 343 votes. The presiding officer had rejected 34 votes from a polling station set up in Government Primary School in UC-18 Qureshian.

The presiding officer said the result had been provided to polling agents of both groups present at the polling station.

Two days after the elections, Niazi had written an application to returning officer Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi and asked for a recount. Votes were then recounted in the presence of both groups.

It was discovered in the recount that Khan had actually polled 572 votes as 74 additional votes were found in a bag.

The returning officer then questioned the polling staff who said they had counted 498 votes for the PTI candidate and had not realised that a bag had been missed.

The returning officer has sent the findings to the ECP and sought advice on how to proceed further.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Khan said the presiding officer had apparently made a mistake in the first count.

Niazi declined comment on the matter, saying he would accept the ECP ruling.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2015.