Impact of women voters

Not many people would know but the women of Lahore played a big part in the PML-N’s victory in NA-120 by-election last month. The PML-N won by a lead of 14,000+ votes over the PTI, compared to 39,000+ lead in 2013. The blame for the narrower margin cannot solely be placed on a low voter turnout of 40%. Even in percentage terms, the PML-N secured 11% fewer votes. So what really happened?

Looking at polling station data, a big part of this loss came from male voters. The PML-N’s victory margin fell by 18% in male polling stations, compared to merely 8% fall in female polling stations compared to the 2013 election.

Interestingly, this was not the first time it happened. Sardar Ayaz Sadiq would have lost the 2015 by-election, had it not been for women voters. PML-N’s victory margin of almost 4% in male polling stations in 2013 fell to a negative margin of 0.23% in 2015. Lucky for Mr Sadiq, the victory margin in female polling stations rose by more than 2%, compensating for the loss of male voters. These findings came out of an ongoing research on women’s electoral participation, by IDEAS and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

So why have men and women been voting differently? Research shows that women’s choices systematically differ from those of men even in political matters. Clinton’s defeat in 2016 is attributed to a large extent to the fact that white women without college degrees chose Trump.

The IDEAS Political Attitudes Survey 2017 carried out by Ali Cheema and Asad Liaquat in three National Assembl and four provincial assembly constituencies of Lahore revealed that while men placed greater emphasis on corruption, purchasing power, health and education than women, women considered electricity, water, gas and security more important than men. Now take into account the PML-N’s emphasis on infrastructure and it becomes clear why women played a big role in the party’s recent victory in Lahore.

The same survey also revealed that almost 60% of the total voters were undecided and women in particular were more ‘disengaged’ from parties, compared to men. Perhaps the women are more logical and can be converted through an issue-based campaign.

How can political parties capitalise on this opportunity? First of all, they need to develop deeper understanding of voting patterns and behaviours and then offer something that resonates well with women voters. But what is even more essential is to enable women participation in the electoral process.

For this to happen, women have to get registered as voters. Despite various efforts, the male-female voter registration gap still persists even in big cities like Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. World Values Survey 2010-14 showed that Pakistan had the worst gender voting gap within the 58 countries surveyed, even outranking Iraq, Kuwait and India. Despite rapid urbanisation and reduced gender gap in education, the corresponding reduction in registration gap has not been witnessed, highlighting the need for targeted efforts. Considering that the PML-N has done well with women voters at least in Lahore, the government has a strong reason to look into it.

Even more importantly, women need to get out on the election day and cast their votes. Women turnout however has traditionally been low. Looking at selected constituency data for 2013, there was 8-10% gap between men and women turnout in a city like Lahore. Imagine the gap in rural areas and other smaller urban centres. This however, is a ‘wicked hard’ challenge that would need persistent efforts.

For now, however, political parties need to bring this opportunity on their radars and start focusing on the large women voter base.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2017.

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