Religious groups threaten to bar women voters

Religious groups in some districts of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) threatened to bar women from polling stations as the second round of local elections began on Wednesday. The groups are particularly critical of the new local government system which guarantees women 33 percent representation. “In the Swabi and Mardan districts of NWFP some religious groups are against the new local government system allowing women 33 percent representation, saying it is unIslamic for a female to be a councillor,” said Aimal Khan of Aurat, a Pakistani NGO campaigning to ensure maximum women’s representation in local government. “Women are underrepresented in Pakistan. Such groups have threatened to stop women from going to the polls in the past, but this is difficult to do. We will see how far they are prepared to go,” Khan told IRIN on Wednesday. The religious political party Fazal Urahaman has been particularly vocal on this issue, does not accept female representation in the public forum and has boycotted Wednesday’s elections, he said. Khan’s comments follow a meeting in a mosque in the Jalbai Union Council of Swabi District on 26 February in which participants voted unanimously to bar female voters from casting their votes. Four female candidates were running unopposed there and participants demanded that the women withdraw their candidacy. Similar meetings were subsequently held in other districts. In Mankai Union Council, religious scholars decided to prevent women from casting votes, according to a report by the Pakistani daily ‘News’ on Wednesday. In addition, efforts would also be made to prevent women from voting in 17 sub-district union councils in Lahor, it said. It added, however, that similar commitments have been made in the past, yet candidates had succeeded in bringing out women voters. Many religious elders had earlier visited the families of female candidates in an effort to pressurise the women to withdraw their candidacies, according to Khan. “The majority of women refused to withdraw their candidacies despite strong pressure to do so,” he said. “When this failed, in Swabi District complaints were made to the local district election officer saying that women candidates running were not interested in running at all and that their candidacy papers were forged,” he added. These accusations were investigated and found to be untrue. “People are casting their votes in a smooth and orderly manner and there have been no reports of problems,” Kanwar Dilshad of the Pakistan Election Commission (EC) in the capital Islamabad told IRIN on Wednesday. Of the 61,990 candidates, there is a record number of female and minority candidates participating with 11,232 and 1,639 candidates respectively. However, Khan told IRIN on Wednesday afternoon that there had been no polling of female voters in the villages of Gurjarhani and Jalala in Mardan District after religious groups called on women to remain indoors. Village elders had told residents that if females were seen voting it would be a “disgrace” upon the village, he said. In one of the three districts of Swabi town there had been no female votes cast, giving the impression that a ban of sorts had successfully been implemented, he added. The Electoral Commission has appointed 157,586 polling personnel at 13,809 polling stations set up 1,459 Union Councils in 20 districts. Asked what measures have been taken to ensure a fair and impartial election, Dilshad said: “The elections being held are under the supervision of the judiciary. At each polling station, there is one presiding officer and four presiding officers as well as three additional officers to ensure impartial elections.” This second phase of local elections, held in all four Pakistani provinces, would end at 5 pm, with results expected later in the evening, he said. The first round was held on 31 December 2000, the third phase is expected in the last week of May, with the fourth and last phase to take place in the last week of July, according to Dilshad. Wednesday’s election marks the second phase of the government’s planned devolution of power after Pakistani chief executive General Pervez Musharraf seized power on 12 October 1999. Musharraf has publicly pledged to hold national elections within the next two years. “The policy to hold the general elections will be announced by Chief Executive Musharraf on 14 August, not before,” Dilshad told IRIN.