Parties face ECP action for flouting rules

A four-member bench of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was informed on Wednesday that a political party's registration could be affected if it failed to maintain 5% quota for women in awarding tickets to the candidates contesting the general elections.

The ECP bench, led by Member Nisar Durrani, heard the matter.

The lawyers for the parties, whose women candidates were less than 5% of their total candidates, appeared before the bench.

The ECP member said that there should be five women out of 100 candidates.

The bench asked whether there was any penalty for not adhering to 5% quota for women. On that the ECP special secretary said that non-compliance with the quota might affect the registration of the party.

The ECP officials informed the bench about those parties, which had failed to adhere to that 5% womens quota, which included Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) 3.8%; Awami National Party (ANP) 3.7%; Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) 1.51% and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) 4%.

Similarly, the officials said, based on the total number of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) candidates, the party was supposed to give tickets to 34 women, but it awarded only 10 tickets, whereas the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) did not give ticket to any woman candidate.

The Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami party (PkMAP) also failed to maintain the women's quota, the officials said. The lawyer for the TLP told the bench that the party gave tickets to all the women applicants, adding that the party could not force anyone to contest an election.

The lawyer for the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) said that the party fielded 27 candidates for the provincial assembly constituencies in the general election, which included two women.

The lawyer further said that there were 11 candidates for the National Assembly seats with no woman.

The lawyer for the JUI-S explained that the party had given tickets to three women but two of them later contested the election as independents, while the nomination papers of the third women candidate were rejected by the Returning officer concerned.

The lawyer for the ANP told the bench that the percentage of the women candidates in the ANP tickets was 13% in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) but the party faced problems in the remaining two provinces of Sindh and Punjab.

Saif Gondal, who appeared on behalf of the JI said that women were 4% of the party's total candidates in the elections, adding that the party always tried to give the women their share in the party tickets. He said that the matter would have been looked into at the time of election.

Later, the ECP bench directed the PkMAP, the PAT and the JI to submit their replies in the matter and adjourned the hearing till October 2.