WAF lauds women’s participation in July 25 polls

Expresses deep concerns over serious rigging allegations

Women’s Action Forum (WAF) considers the Elections 2018 a step in the continuation of democracy in Pakistan.

In a statement WAF said it commends the enthusiasm of women voters and candidates for participating in the electoral process despite security threats and denial of a level playing field and obvious engineering to favour one party against others.

WAF also acknowledges the positive legal reforms under Election Law 2017, particularly related to the 5 per cent mandatory women quota on general seats by the political parties, and declaring the elections null and void in polling stations and constituencies with less than 10 per cent of the women voters turn out, in addition to others aimed at improving electoral procedures in the country.



Despite concerted efforts by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and civil society organisations prior to the elections, there is a large gap in women to men voter registration numbers (approximately 11.9 million) that needs to be highlighted. This is despite the fact that as the result of massive efforts of the ECP and civil society organisations; 24 per cent more women were registered as voters in 2018 compared to the past. WAF urges ECP and NADRA to increase its efforts considerably to reduce this gap prior to any upcoming election in the future.

WAF is concerned that despite ECP’s claims of providing all required facilities in line with the Election Act 2017, many polling stations consisted of small, dark, humid rooms without ventilation, in some cases not even equipped with fans and bathrooms and lacked ramps for the old and disabled women.

WAF strongly condemns the bomb blast on the elections day in Quetta and pre-poll violence in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Balochistan. “We hold the state responsible for its lack of ability to provide effective protection to all voters and candidates,” the statement said. Violence might have played a role in lower voter turnout, particularly amongst the women voters, in Balochistan and K-P.

WAF acknowledges the efforts of ECP gender desks of setting up a complaint management system for women at the national and provincial level, and further demands that the ECP take measures for making publicly available information on the number and proportion of complaints and petitions by women lodged, decided and upheld received through complaint cells, tribunals or the judiciary. WAF also notes that the ECP gender desk worked better at the federal level and the provincial desks were not considered responsive. WAF also applauds the highest women voter turnout (more than 70 per cent) in Tharparkar, Sindh.

WAF recommends that women polling staff, mostly drawn from the Education Department, should be provided with safe environment, transport and be assisted in transporting election materials to the facility and their role an efforts in holding elections should be acknowledged in their appraisal/ACRs.



WAF remains deeply concerned over the serious allegations leveled by the political parties/agents of not receiving Form 45, delayed results, high number of discarded votes, last minute change of polling stations, the failure of the Results Transmission System (RTS) application in the middle of the vote count, and other anomalies, and fears if these are not addressed adequately by the ECP it will further strengthen the fears of political parties and public perception of “engineered elections” that may undermine the legitimacy of the 2018 elections with serious repercussions on Pakistan’s efforts to transition to a well-functioning democracy.

Election observers have noted that in several cases polling agents were told to leave the room when votes were being counted, which is alarming, and that security personnel were also noting results at the polling stations and transmitting them to what seemed to be a parallel tabulating centre.

“We are deeply concerned that candidates representing sectarian and hate mongering political groups were allowed to contest the elections while candidates from legitimate political parties were disqualified at the last minute on what seemed to be minor issues,” the statement said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2018.